By Devon Martinez, Staff Writer
PC: absolutvision on Unsplash
Curiosity kills cats, but it creates great journalists.
Curiosity is not the only quality needed to create fantastic journalists, but it is the one thing every journalist has in common.
Writing for the PPCC paper is an opportunity available to all students through Journalism 106. The lessons learned in this course carry over for your future career in media, with on the job training and real reporting that provides students a voice at the largest college in Colorado Springs.
The truth is everything about journalism is difficult; the writing is different than any other style that you’ve probably had to deal with. Finding stories and collecting the data on the story takes time and effort. These challenges add to the excitement and rush especially at the end when you’re finished with a story.
Media is a changing landscape and with that, there is no end to what you can do, if there is a way to tell a story and people are willing to listen, the market will provide you with the avenue to tell the story.
My interest in media and news existed before I joined The Paper because every night at my house Glenn Beck’s Fox show played on my family’s television. The 1-hour program featured blackboards and wild antics (dousing someone with gasoline), but behind the insanity were real discussions and information on the stories of the day.
Beck looks back on his old Fox show with shame since he admits that his rhetoric helped further division between people in this country, but I look back to his show with love because it opened my mind to a career field with unlimited opportunity.
In high school, I made the decision that I wanted a life in media and with my passion I created Jefferson Youth News a website dedicated to sharing the news with my fellow classmates at Falcon High School. I created it my senior year and gave my fellow classmates a voice they didn’t know they had.
The website failed, and with it, my dreams in media died. Everyone around me told me that Journalism is falling apart and going to school with the hopes of ‘making’ it in media would lead to disappointment. Like a fool, I believed them.
What I didn’t understand is that media is currently going through a technological shift, which means people are looking for new avenues to consume media. The educational cost of entry to get into media went from obtaining an expensive bachelor’s degree to launching YouTube channels and blogs for essentially nothing.
There are more media outlets and more people in news than ever before, and there is also an unlimited number of platforms for people to tell stories in conventional and unconventional manners.
The next few years resulted in my major changing several times: I tried Marketing, Economics, and Political Science, but I didn’t see a future for myself in any of these fields. I even dropped out of school and tried starting my own business. Fate lead me back to Colorado Springs.
I made it full circle when I took Journalism 105 last summer and am now passionately doing all that I can to ensure that this career works for me.
Journalism is for those who are interested in everything. I realized I could write about economics, marketing, and politics because they are all interconnected. And, as I mentioned earlier the media landscape is forever changing because of technology. It’s exciting!
Journalism 105 and 106 opened my mind to a world of possibilities on where my career might go. I created my own podcast The Best Time To Be Alive because I gained the confidence to believe I could.
Interviewing people gives insight into the way people think and writing about events provides you with the mind to turn everyday life into a story because life itself is a story.
Journalism is now available in several different forms, and because of that, anyone can join. Join the school paper, take Journalism 105 and 106, and tell groundbreaking stories for students to ensure everyone at PPCC has a voice.
I can honestly say JOU 106 changed my life. Now I am focused and ready to move forward with my career in media.
Journalism is needed to uncover the truth in all areas of society. It begins on the smallest scale (college journalism) and moves upward from there, and we can work together at PPCC to ensure that the next generation of journalists, which includes you and I, are at the forefront of great reporting in the digital age of news.
