While the future of journalism will undoubtedly look different than it does today, it will continue be an integral part of our society as long as there are those committed to reporting news in a fair and balanced manner. There are many valuable roles for aspiring journalists to pursue if they are passionate about news and serving the public, and each role has its own appealing attributes and challenges. For me, the choice has been a fairly easy one. Despite the trend of public cynicism and a general mistrust for the media, my primary goal is to become an investigatory journalist. Investigative journalism has a very special draw for curious individuals, and is appealing because it directly serves the public as an independent monitor of power as described by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel in The Elements of Journalism.
It is safe to say that journalists, in general, don't pursue this profession for the money, considering that the average annual salary for journalists is fairly modest by national standards. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the middle 50% of reporters earned somewhere between $25,760 and $52,160 in 2008. However, according to payscale.com, some employees of the New York Times currently make as much as $174,524.
In any case, for all successful journalists, there has to be something beyond a simple paycheck to sustain their morale and keep them on the job. For investigatory journalists, it seems that the reward comes from knowing you are directly aiding citizens by sharing the information which enables them to maintain a society which is free and self governing. Without the dedication of investigatory journalists, there would be very few ways for the public to hold those in authority accountable for their decisions, and so would be less able to influence change in the community when necessary. Transparency is ideal where powerful parties and governments are concerned, but unfortunately, that is rarely a priority of those in power. Journalists not only keep the public aware of current events, but they give a voice to the voiceless in a way which cannot be ignored or easily silenced.
Investigative journalism is a role which can be practiced even by reporters who are fresh to the news writing profession. It is not uncommon for younger reporters to be assigned to the police and fire department beat, which certainly provides opportunities to fulfill the "watchdog" role on a regular basis. In recent months, Spokane journalists have been doing this in their coverage of officer-related shootings and the allegations of police cover-ups surrounding incidents of excessive force. They have shown persistence in their pursuit of truth, while employing fair reporting methods and haven't let bias slant their stories in either direction.
Recently, I had the opportunity to do a job shadow with Meghann Cuniff, a local news reporter for the Spokesman Review, and got a feel for what a typical day's work looks like for a journalist on the police/fire department beat. During that afternoon, I saw first hand just how much new technology and social networking is used by journalists for information gathering as well as communication. While I was there, Cuniff was working on a story about a younger man who had been shot by a police officer in Colville after a call came in about someone prowling around parked cars. She had already gotten some basic information from police reports, but she chose to utilize Facebook as a means of finding people connected with the man who had been shot. After a few minutes of browsing yielded some useful connections, she shot off a brief Facebook message to the man's father, hoping that he might respond quickest via the internet. She did, however, manage to contact him by phone shortly afterward, and ended up with many useable quotes and interesting insights which ended up in the paper the next day. Before drafting the full story for the newspaper, she took about 15 minutes to write up a brief of that story and posted it online. Cuniff said that it generally takes her about that long to post these briefs to the Spokesman Review online with a simple program called Django, and then spends about an hour adjusting the final story for the paper before the 9:00 p.m. deadline. In addition to the use of Facebook and the Spokesman Review website in the reporting process, Twitter is used to provide minute-to-minute updates to news followers. The development of methods like these is drastically different than anything we have seen in the past, but serves a very important purpose. In this technologically driven world, people are no longer willing to wait for the morning paper to find out what is happening around them, and are best served by a more continuous news stream. During the recent trial of Officer Karl Thompson, Cuniff spent a good deal of time at the county court house, posting a stream of Twitter updates as she watched a live feed of the trial which was taking place in Yakima, Washington. It seems inevitable that in the near future, the internet will become the primary vehicle of news for the public, and as more people are using smart phones, it is quite likely that soon most people will be getting news updates on their phones throughout the day, rather than from a traditional newspaper, or even televised news sources.
Later in the day, Meghann Cuniff allowed me to come to the courthouse with her where she looked through public records for possible stories, and to follow up on ongoing investigations about which she had already written. It was interesting to me that even the details in police reports and search warrants are considered public records. I was surprised at how simple it actually is to obtain these record. All she did was ask for whatever records she wanted, and within a minute or two they were right in front of her; huge stacks of raw information ready to be sifted and perhaps converted into a compelling news story. While I know that these records are open to the general public, it was clear that the relationships Cuniff has developed by becoming a regular part of the courthouse scenery make her job much easier. I am sure that there are circumstances where one could at least be delayed in getting information without those pre-established relationships in place.
Overall, the hours I spent on this job shadow assignment convinced me that I have indeed found the profession that suits my goals and passions. There is, however, the issue of job availability to be considered, and I am aware of the challenges which will doubtless face me in the job market. According to the projections on workforceexplorer.com, tIn Washington state there was a negative growth rate of -4.2% from 2009 to 2011, and the expected change from 2008 to 2018 is supposed to be -23.3% . In addition, the hourly average pay is stated to be $23.22 as of 2011. These statistics are not particularly encouraging, but for me, the motivation to pursue this profession is has everything to do with doing what I love, and less to do with the number on the paycheck. In order to get into the field, it will be imperative to stay ahead of the game by keeping up with technological advances and becoming proficient in using the tools at my disposal. In addition, I intend to build a portfolio through working on the school newspaper. Joe Palmquist, Managing Sports Editor at the Spokesman Review shared some information which I found to be encouraging. He mentioned that as newspapers are forced to cut corners financially, when their reporters retire, the paper cannot necessarily afford to replace them with equally experienced -and therefore more expensive- journalists. This opens the door for young reporters who are eager to start work. With enough curiosity, drive and a strong focus on building the necessary skills, I am confident that I will be able to enter the field and serve as an investigatory journalist.
