Just News? Bleh.

Growing up, I watched the news.
Sometimes.
Ok well I watched it when my parents were watching the 10:00 news.
Yeah right, I was in the same room doing my homework while it played in the background.

Growing up, I read the newspaper.
Occasionally.
My friend saved a boy's life in the cafeteria by giving the Heimlich Maneuver and we were in the paper about it.  I did read that, well just the parts where I was quoted.
But lets get real, every other time I just looked at the pictures when it was lying on the counter.

I'm embarrassed to say, "the news" was never a big part of my life growing up.  Sure, I knew it was important, and did my fair share of Current Event assignments throughout my public school years, but join the Journalism class/club in High School? Yeah right, I always knew that was not for me.

-Ironic as I write this for my Intro to Journalism class.-

When deciding a major to pick, I knew I loved to write, so, many people suggested Journalism for me. I've been known to throw out a few "just writing about news? No way, thats so boring"'s here and there, so most people backed off.
But then- I was about to go into my fourth year of college and something had to happen.  So I actually thought about it:
I love talking to people. I love to write. I work well under pressure--actually I only work under pressure (Procrastination is looked at as a skill not a flaw over here in my mind.) So why not take the Journalism route?

People need the News, and I have grown to love it, but just gobbling up facts and then spitting them back out to the public will never be appealing to me.  But is that really the only option? Many of my classes I am taking now automatically categorize "Journalism" as news, which is understandable--it being the biggest field.  But I wish there were more "but thats not the only option!" hints along the way.  Because it's not.

Ever heard of a little publication called Newsweek? Readers Digest? The New Yorker? Its not just straight facts being presented to you.  Sure, its not breaking news-happening now kind of stories, but these pieces have creativity, something that in my mind, hard news stories tend to frown upon.

Reporters covering hard news may have developed the Journalism industry, but people like Louella Parsons, Liz Smith, Hedda Hopper, Walter Winchell, David Sedaris, David Foster Wallace and many more have transformed it into something totally different, and that place is where I want to be.