“We take a civics class during our senior year to learn about government and democracy. Yet we leave out journalism, which is a core principle to American democracy.”
By Chad Mays
Chad Mays
The news we read, listen to and watch is produced with one common goal: to inform people. Not having people who can produce good and strong journalism would be devastating to the public.
When I moved from Morgan Hill to Lincoln, Neb., in 2019 to attend school at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life. But I knew it would be something in the media industry.
I quickly fell in love with journalism. By the beginning of my sophomore year of college, I was working as a reporter for my school’s independent student run newspaper, The Daily Nebraskan. I was excited to start but quickly realized I might have been in over my head.
On my first official day as a reporter, my editors told me to attend our budget on Sunday night.
For those who don’t know the term, a “budget” in the journalism world is where editors distribute stories for the upcoming week. I did not know that at the time, and I was confused why a brand-new reporter was being asked to attend a money meeting for a newspaper.
The point is, I did not know a whole lot about journalism while everyone else at the student newspaper did. That was scary. I believed I wasn’t good enough to write because everyone was ahead of me. They all learned journalism in high school. I never had that opportunity.
In grade school, especially in high school, we sit in classrooms for hours eight hours a day and we learn. What we learn is important and it helps us become more intelligent people, there is no question about that.
However, we put so much emphasis on things that don’t have a major impact on our futures and ignore important things that should be taught, like journalism.
We spend 12 years of our lives learning about America and its core principles. We take a civics class during our senior year to learn about government and democracy. Yet we leave out journalism, which is a core principle to American democracy.
In my four years at Sobrato High School, the closest thing I ever had to a journalism class was taking yearbook my senior year. Yearbook and journalism are nothing alike.
Journalism also teaches students teamwork, communication skills, writing skills, how to talk with people you don’t know and countless other skills.
Journalism is facing a major cross-roads. There aren’t a lot of people who want to get into the news industry because they don’t know about it, or they don’t view it in a positive light. Part of that reason is because the students in K-12 don’t ever get a chance to really learn about it and practice it.
High schools need to teach journalism. At a minimum they need to make it available to students. Failing to do that puts our future generations at risk. I know journalism isn’t for everyone. But neither is math or science, yet we are still forced to take those classes every year of high school.
A world without journalists leads to a less-educated electorate. That should terrify everyone.
I want to leave you with a quote from one of my role models and arguably one of the greatest journalists of all time, Walter Cronkite: “Journalism is what we need to make democracy work.”
