Leah's Take: What is Journalism?

Page after page I would write in my small Hello Kitty diary. Topics of who I had a big crush on, who created drama at recess, what I wanted to be when I got older, and why my big sister made me cry filled the pages. After this diary, I composed another--and another--but the stories began to change. What I wrote about began to blossom into topics of conversation that made me question what my life will amount to.

Beyond diary entries, I began writing for school. My teachers would invite us to write topics that mattered to us, things that we began seeing issues in our culture with. I was drawn to topics of societal issues about women oppression, people experiencing poverty, and how the civil rights movement is presently in action. I pored over books and interviews where I saw humans standing for peace and equality. That is when I knew that I, too, wanted to stand for something greater--through how I wrote.

Mornings before school consisted of me rolling out of my bed and down the stairs to eat breakfast while watching the news with my Dad. I always found the news so depressing. There were natural disasters, murders, protests, police brutality... the exhaustive list made me believe there was nothing but a scary world out there. However, in the midst of the chaos, there was the silver lining of hope that each journalist wrote with, each reporter spoke with, that made me hopeful. That is when I knew that what I wrote mattered and who I am was important.

Since my early school days and essays, my topics of discussion and arguments evolved because I have evolved. Journalism is not reporting "bad things," but it reports the truth with a hope for humanity. Each journal entry or essay I compose, despite our culture's climate, always displays hope while conveying empathy and compassion to readers. Journalism gets the hard facts and gritty issues, but conveys them with an invitation to humanity to respond. Journalists are not there to condemn, rather they are there to write what they know while extending opportunity to the reader to take action, be informed, and participate in culture. For that reason, I am proud to become a journalist in a generation with endless possibilities to invite unity for a better future.