Do the Responsible Thing by Katie Wright

There is, perhaps, no greater time than now that can demonstrate the media's ability to influence the world around us. The War in Iraq, the 2008 Presidential Election; nothing holds a candle to the influence these two events have in terms of not only shaping our world for the next decade or so, but in allowing educators vast access to invaluable teaching tools demonstrating the great weight of media influence and how our society eats it up.

I believe the weight of the real problem lies in, and the solution rests upon, the fact that in our modern age of technology, with the instantaneous access to mass amounts of information, now more than ever, the weight of the world can be put on journalists shoulders.

Journalists, who, not so long ago, like the students in my journalism classes now, sat in desks in a high school classroom wondering not if Al Gore would win a Nobel Peace Prize some day, but worried about how to lead into the article covering the upcoming Sadie Hawkins Dance.
Do I go with who the Homecoming Queen asked or how pathetic it is that we don t even have a DJ?
Once again, I tell my student: Do the responsible thing.

It can start with accurate coverage of the latest dance, but it has the potential to culminate into world-changing, Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage that sadly comes second only now in our society to the news that Britney is in yet another drug rehab relapse.

Adolescents can see the shallow end of irresponsible journalism approaching. They are the ones researching student-journalists rights to better understand their first amendment freedoms. Not because a teacher implored them to, but because they are ravenous to gain the trust of their readership and administration, to exercise judgment and responsibility for their journalistic pursuits, and to be taken seriously as a sector of our society that has, amongst other monumental attributes, millions of dollars in expendable income and a powerful technology-knowledge base beyond their predecessors wildest dreams.

They are the generation that has the potential to be the ultimate weight to counter of this overwhelming need for reporting that answers questions and allows readers to make their own decisions. And it is my fear that somehow, along the way to professional pursuits, that will be beaten out of them.

I look on my job as an teacher as a personal responsibility to instruct these students of their given freedoms and of how to use them not only responsibly, but respectfully. The students of rural and parochial America are being starved just as much as the American public from the pursuits of (and, for that matter, from being allowed to become) responsible journalists. They must have examples. They must have experiences. They must have practice.

As I peruse these adolescents that surround me each day, I wonder: will my students, with all their potential, be the ones to quench that thirst, to fill that void?

I believe that I have a responsibility to these students as much as the press has a responsibility to the American public. Why can't these kids endeavor to become honest, dependable, responsible journalists? They were raised with those values; why leave them at the newsroom door?

I can only hope that there will continue to be conscientious students and parents that enable my teaching to retain the ability to entice the future journalists of our nation to push to do more, to be better, and in turn, satisfy the American public so that our world can come to expect more out of journalists.