They talked to my J101 class about 9/11 since we are living today on the anniversary of that awful time back in 2001. It was a great 2 hours, and I learned a lot. It especially enlightened me with what I wanted to write about in this blog. We discussed why the American media is not as credible as in places around the world.
Professor Kalyango made mention to the fact that American journalism is perceived as being "polite and submissive". This somewhat puzzled me at first. When I think of the United States of America, I think of a big bullying nation that chooses to be on the offense, not the defense, and is nowhere near the neutrality of Switzerland! Don't get me wrong, I don't think where we are at this time we could afford to be on the defense, considering we have made this country one of the, if not THE, most powerful countries in the world. But when I do think about my country, the words "polite and submissive" certainly do not come into my head.
Professor Kalyango went on to explain that other journalists around the world choose to take a more aggressive stance when reporting on world affairs, whereas the US journalists choose to report safe and unproven facts. He also said that US journalists are better at investigating "large corporate complicated projects" and lacks the ability to report on international crises.
This disturbed me, because I was always under the illusion that the United States was not just the most powerful nation in military ways, but in all ways, including the media and journalists. It's scary to think in the way that Professor Kalyango does...that my age group will be the ones to make or break the journalism field. If we can't change it, what's going to happen to the entire United States journalism career field?
It's frightening, but I have faith that we can change. I'll write more about this later.
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