Patches of Journalism

When I first came to the North Gate Hall which is the nest of Graduate School of Journalism, I was impressed by the box-like bronze-colored building, and Mary finely gave me a fold copy named “On behalf of Journalism: a manifesto for change”. This made me a little curious about what’s in the bronze box?

I remember there always a book named Guideline of Actors or something like that, in one of Stephen Chow (周星驰)’s autobiographical movie King of Comedy(喜剧之王) , when he was hit or depressed he opened the book for strength and assistant to spending over 10 years time to be a successful and popular comedy actor.

It’s interesting that manifesto is just like the guideline or we usually call it Red Treasured Book. This is my first truly touch of Journalism, I still have no idea why and how it should be changed. But I’m happy I’m in this tide of change.

 

Moming is a second year Chinese student here in J-school, his signing message of MSN is “The Journal runs the country; The Post hopes to run the country; The Times thinks it's running the country.” Why Post always be open posted and Times always stand in the center and frontier of time? I get to understand more about that "the world is what the media pictures, and we are what the journal tells".

 

Carolyn, the coordinator of our visiting scholar, is a beautiful cute young lady with charming smiling face. We got a Visiting Scholar Seminar every Wednesday Morning, she described the news teller how to “define a story, selecting a viewpoint, and identifying sources”, and the journalists’ goal is to inform, educate and persuade.

I’m not sure whether we all wearing colorful glasses, how can you define a story and then selecting a viewpoint? In my primary view, you, a so-called reporter from responsible media, cover the holistic story, with the opinion and the counter opinion, and try to figure out the real and true situation to the public. Define, select is really not a good idea for me. And people have the right to be informed, but they also get the right not to be educated and persuade except self-educated and self-persuade, anyway theoretically.

 

They say creating a well-informed public would be the journalism's ultimate goal. So I think I it’s better for me to follow some big Journalists’ steps, here is the first:

Hugh Sidey(休•西迪), he is the writer for presidents for more than 30 years, In China we call a minister is San Chao Yuan Lao, who experienced 3 emperor, but he tells nine. He is the journalist who covered the reports of Kennedy assassinated in Dallas and Nixon’s trip to China, and others.

In Lara Bush’s speech for Hugh Sidey Scholarship of Journalism in White House, she said “In Hugh's weekly dispatches for Time and Life magazine, Americans read the last half-century of our nation's history”. He learned the lasting lesson that it was paramount to have all your facts straight and that “how you said something was sometimes more important than what you said”.

Hugh observed, "The presidency is an institution, true; but it's ultimately the product of the personality that occupies it." Hugh Sidey understood that our leaders are human, and he treated them with dignity and respect. It’s hard to be respectful to a peasant while self-respecting to the president, Hugh deserves a thumb of true man.

 

I’d like to say thanks, my friend, for enduring my Bie Jiao English, but I have to try to use it to think and deliver what I cherish, only if I feel no barrier to express my idea, and free of thinking and communication, my English can be enough for a short journal journey.