On Wednesday March 30th our journalism class had a special guest come in and talk about journalism and the pro's and con's of becoming a journalist. Mr. Luke X Martin, our special guest, is a free lance journalist, who recently graduated from Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Before that he earned a bachelor's degree in English literature from University of Kansas. At the moment he is living in Kansas where he practices his journalism skills and his passion for photography.
Prior to his visit our journalism class read three of his articles, "What Chain of Command?", "Are We There Yet" and "Chrissy Murderbot can pronounce 'Eyjafjallajokul'". Before even meeting him i got an idea that he was a versatile writer. His writing reflected his real passion for writing pieces.
This is the first time i am meeting a journalist and quite frankly i am glad that i met Mr. Luke, firstly he was a young journalist so it was more easy to relate to him, secondly he seemed very open minded (not biased at all) and lastly because he was honest. He showed me the reality of journalism, the good side and the bad side. His honesty is what lead me to believe him and that is one thing that intrigued me about him.
He talked about the difficulties of becoming a journalist, to the difference between Pakistani and American Newspaper, to why he chooses to write about certain topics to where his real passion was derived from and to the process of writing one article itself.
The session began with us asking questions about the three articles we read, but it became more about the reality of journalism soon. He told us how hard it is to actually verify information, how long it takes write one piece, how the salary of your job is a factor, and how hard it is to find a job these days.
What intrigued me the most was when i asked him if the Newspaper agencies can play around with news. I still remember the exact thing he said to my question right away. He said "the newspaper agencies hold the power of what the audience hears". He basically told us that because the newspaper agencies have an audience that tends to believe them, they hold the power of what the news can be. That was my favorite part of the session because it was the simple truth coming from one of the journalist itself. Although, i dislike this fact completely, that the news can be altered to an extent, it is reality and if one wants to become a journalist he or she has to follow some rules.
It was also interesting to here the limitations of being a journalist. For instance, he told us that the title is usually made by the editor and that the editor gets the last call. I personally think that that limits what we call "freedom of speech" and that made me think isn't journalism all about freedom? However, then i reflected it back to my own High School Journalism Class. Although we have more freedom in writing what we want and writing the headlines ourselves, at the end we still have it checked so it is alright to publish. All of this made me realize, that journalism is about freedom of speech but with its limitations here and there.
I think the session with Luke X Martin, made me see the real world of journalism. In our own journalism class one might not see it clearly but if one listened to Luke X Martin, we could see that some of the processes were quite similar but on a smaller base. Also, his complete honesty is what made me like him more and it made me realize the true journalism industry. Overall, i think that the session was amazing and it gave me a chance to ask a journalist anything that i wanted to know.
For more information you can view Mr. Luke's blog
(http://lukexmartin.tumblr.com/)
Here's a link to the three articles we read before he come.
Check out the Chrissy Murderbot Piece!
http://lukexmartin.tumblr.com/murderbotfeature
http://lukexmartin.tumblr.com/teapartydept
http://medilldc.net/2010/06/what-chain-of-command/
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