I've had a revelation, and it's all thanks to someone named Robert McChesney.
After his visit to the College tonight, I couldn't help but feel inspired. He not only gave us insight into the research he did while writing his 23rd and 24th books, he also took our audience questions. The questions ranged from the typical social media issues of today, to Al Jazeera's new presence in the U.S., and everything in between.
While I appreciated the lecture in its entirety, there was one idea McChesney shared that had me on a stream-of-consciousness warpath in my head for the rest of the presentation. He reiterated a point that I'd heard a million times, but summarized it in a way I hadn't even thought about.
When someone asked how the new issue of online surveillance affects the way journalists will be able to do their job, he answered,
"Fascism, right? Large corporations working hand-in-hand with the government! The only thing that will check that is journalism that checks the government, but right now we are getting smaller newsrooms and newspapers are dying!! ...Is there really any hope?"
Yes, yes, we've heard this all before. Print is dying, nobody reads magazines, blah blah blah. But it was what came after, that really struck a chord.
"American history pits and peaks with different eras and we're overdue by a good ten or fifteen years for a peak. I think we're right on the verge of that moment-- maybe we're even in it. For young people now, it's going to be in your best interest to get into this moment."
...Oh my god. He's right.
HE'S RIGHT!?!
When I started in Journalism as a freshman, I dove right in with giddiness and zeal because everything was so new and exciting. Once I hit sophomore year, though, I began to feel the pressure-- everything from the "where will I work?" questions to the "do I even want to do this?" ones. Why was I in a major that everyone around me was constantly discrediting? Sure, we all need news, but who will pay attention to it once nobody has a newspaper to read or they can just check twitter to see the one link everyone is reading? Who listens to Fox or CNN anymore, when they know half of it is bullsh*t?
But that's exactly why they need real journalists! And that's exactly what McChesney is saying.
Journalism shouldn't be "dying." Mainstream media should be.
I'm at this funky stage in my life, where I feel like a little sponge trying to take so much in. Studying abroad, along with being lucky enough to have a hands-on education at IC, has made me see that there's no way our generation is going down without a fight. In this strange time where a new mass shooting happens every day or the government feeds more and more lies to the public to spread throughout social media, there's something coming. I can feel it.
Real journalists aren't going to sit idly by and watch the values they hold so dear slip out of their hands. Have we reached a point where enough is enough? I'm sick of not being able to trust anything on TV. I'm tired of advertisements bombarding me everywhere I go, and learning that those corporations run so much of the world around us. The choices we make in what we eat, watch, spend money on... those all literally change our future! Corporations are using online surveillance and data gathering methods to basically try and control all the parts of our lives that requires decision-making.
I don't know about you, but I think people are starting to catch on. They're right-- turn off that Fox and CNN crap. Sure, end your newspaper subscription if you want. But more and more people are hitting up Independent online sources to figure out what's really going on in the world when they wake up in the morning or go to bed at night. As a general public, maybe we can be a little... uh... well, unintelligent. Ok. But as individuals? This generation coming up is the most tech-savvy we've ever had in America! They can connect the dots on computers and online in a way that those before us have never been able to do. They may be one of the largest groups of consumers we've seen in decades, but the majority of them can tell you what's real and what's fake. My little sister would never sit and tell a "Chat Bot" about her day on AIM the way we used to... "that's just stupid," she's said before. "Who knows where those robot answers are coming from."
I can feel it in my bones, though. Something big is going to happen, and it'll all be part of this technological revolution happening right before our eyes. But I can't just wait around for someone to do it for me. I have to stop giving mainstream media "page views" online and start reporting on the facts.
It's time for Independent media to step into the spotlight and remind society what it really means to tell the truth, and help people remember that each person's contributions to this world are much more powerful than they think.
So, no. We're not all just screwed anyway.
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