A lot of people expect journalists to be completely unbiased on all fronts. But then, when I tell people I’m a journalism major, the first question I usually get is, oh, what’s your opinion on this or that or the other thing happening in the news right now?
I get it. I’m a journalist, so it’s kind of my job to know about these things, and, in turn, it’s only natural to form opinions. But what I've learned from my attempt to be constantly informed is that we live in a fairly impermanent world. What I mean by that is, the way things are this very moment are not the way things are going to be in the next moment. Everything about this world is constantly changing, shifting, or transforming into something new. People with power change their minds, which leads to a new course of events which has a domino effect on the rest of the world. We have no way of knowing what is going to happen next, or how long something is going to stay the way it is, or how long it is going to take for us to find out it was never that way in the first place. All I'm saying is, if we live in a world of impermanence, how can we form permanent opinions about it? And so, I've decided to live a life where I don't get attached to any opinions I may form. This allows me to maintain a more open mind whenever I cover a story, or whenever I talk to someone who initially I may disagree with. And so, I've decided that, as a journalist, I want to live to be informed. To absorb as much as knowledge as I possibly can about people and disperse that information to the public so we can all be informed. To waste any time on defending any opinions I may have along the way is pointless — I wish to understand as many perspectives as I can, and how can I do that if I am so blinded by my own? And so, I begin my "I Live to Be Informed" movement.
In this blog, I will be posting (and hopefully informing) you about my journey in entering the journalism industry, what I learn about digital media, and, most importantly, about people I meet along the way.