Why journalism? This is a question I’ve been hesitant to answer in the past. I’ve heard peers answer that they want to make a difference, change the world and give voices to the voiceless. I’ve heard some say they want to leave a legacy. Some admit that they just like to write. I think all of those things are a part of why we do this thing called journalism. After all, as dynamic a profession as journalism is, how could there be just one right answer?
During my time at the Poynter Institute, I did a story on why people still read books. I set out to interview and photograph people at a large bookstore in St. Petersburg, asking questions like, ‘What’s your favorite book?’ and ‘How has a book inspired you before?’ But, just like most times I head out to do my reporting, rather than just conducting interviews, I heard stories. I met people. I became a witness to this love affair that I discovered between books and their readers. I became a catalyst for a conversation about a love that many hadn’t quite articulated before. I connected with 11 unique, interesting lives—11 untold stories—that I never would have found unless I was doing journalism.
That’s what makes our job as journalists so exciting and so challenging: Our subject isn’t static. We’re never done. We can’t learn one skill or trade or computer program and do that for the rest of our lives. We learn people, stories, themes of the human condition—threads that are constantly weaving throughout the world around us. We have to be tireless in observing, appreciating and thinking critically about the world, and we never stop learning. Once we’ve found the stories, we have a seemingly endless flood of media with which to tell them. And in today’s market, we are each expected to be storytellers across several media. Yes, the fluidity of journalism means we will never arrive at perfection. We will never master every skill or be lifetime experts. But we have the opportunity to be curious, to be adventurous, to take our every creative thought and see where it leads us. And in the process, we may just make a difference, change the world and give voices to the voiceless, too.
