News or stories?
Emmy Jansen
MSMU Class of 2023
(10/2021) Newspapers are dying. This mantra was thrown at me again and again throughout my English and History courses in my secondary education. Social media was on the rise, newsmagazines were trying to shift with the times, and the newspaper stopped getting physically delivered to my house. Yet, something kept drawing me to journalism. My high school days were filled with yearbook publishing deadlines, editor duties, and writing courses I enjoyed while other teens were at the beach. I liked to write, but more importantly, I loved to tell stories. I’ve written consistently for journals and publications for the past eight years. So, looking at my own life, it sure doesn’t seem like its dying.
However, it is. Journalism suffers, especially in this country, with entertainment media, social media, and commercialization, among other factors. I’m not one to dismiss change just for the sake of it, but sometimes tradition is better than the alternative. If we lose the newspaper, history doesn’t make sense. Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison chose to publish The Federalist Papers, not to orate them. Hamilton, as well as Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, and John Adams, were all journalists in addition to being Founding Fathers. Hearst and Pulitzer, newspaper giants of the late nineteenth century, were politicians. Franklin Roosevelt, with his fireside chats, can be said to have dipped his toes into the journalistic world. The inventions of the twentieth century flowed with the tide, with radio and TV broadcasts allowing the country the same access to information unlike before. I can name some sports announcers, sure, and I know the personalities
on the local radio stations. But the social positions given to journalists today pales in comparison to giants of free speech and publication.
With the explosion of technology, there are so many places we could receive information: newspapers, magazines, television, radio, advertising, social media, websites. Yet, the more places to seek information has dulled the information available. Newspapers have shortened, magazines are digital, and every publication has an Instagram where they shrink the information into a few phrases. Entertainment has become news and news has become entertainment. Buzzfeed, a popular entertainment site, has added a newsfeed portion. The New York Times, in between stories of global significance, shares pictures of celebrities and Hollywood trivia. While entertainment and pop culture can be meaningful and provide the country with influential cultural novelties, there exists real danger with equating them with news.
The result has been to soften news, to make it as digestible as the pop culture bookending it. We write with our readers in mind, not to share the stories that are worth printing on the page. Stories are shortened because we can’t expect people to read as much anymore, even though the literacy rates are higher now than they were when newspapers held social significance. Are Americans not as smart as they used to be? The increasing number of Americans holding college degrees would beg to differ. I am a bit of an optimist; there is no doubt in my mind that the vast American public could stomach journalism as it used to be, with news, significance, information, yes, and even higher word counts. That is, if we gave them the opportunity to try.
Edward Murrow, the inspiration behind this publication, predicted this change long before I was around to chronicle it: "This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and even it can inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise, it’s nothing but wires and lights in a box." Murrow said this about TV, before the proliferation of channels that leads most Americans to turn off the device instead of choosing one of thousands. This same statement could be said about radio, newspapers, social media, television, and music. If we, on the production end, allow the medium to be something, it will serve that purpose for the audience. If we, assuming something about the audience, make the medium fit that presupposed mold, we should not be shocked to find our audience eating it up. We let the profits drive the production, and as I start picking up some of the burdens of adulthood, I understand that to be a
valid course of action. However, there have been and there will continue to be drastic impacts of these journalistic choices.
Other than being a contributing writer to this unique publication, I am the Student Body President at the Mount. Shortly after I was elected, a seasoned staff member left me with this: "A student government is only as strong as the student newspaper, or vice versa. If both are strong, the university can’t help but take them seriously." I hadn’t connected these facets of my life before, although they’ve always coexisted. As well as being a passionate storyteller, I’ve always had my hand in the political realm of the institutions. They aren’t too different; being a leader is about listening to the stories around you and deciding which ones need to continue and which need to drastically change course. It is not to suffocate the voices of others around you, but to listen to those you serve and tweak the plot when the problems arise.
Edward Murrow knew this. In addition to being a news personality, he saw the importance of storytelling. I know Murrow best from the editions in my bedroom of This I Believe, where the famous and not famous were encouraged to share their personal motivations and life stories in a few minutes or pages. These stories were told by former presidents, celebrities, notables, and nobodies. It was these stories that ignited the fire of journalism in my heart at a young age and I have spent the years since then chasing that spirit in publications, only to wind up here, doing exactly that. So Emmitsburg and surrounding, goodnight, and wish me luck in trying to live out the mission Murrow has left us with.
