The Dying Media?

In this day and age, you often hear people saying that journalism is a dying media. They state that newspapers are becoming obsolete and unnecessary. However, I have a different belief.

Journalism will never die.

As long as there are people living and breathing on Earth, news will never stop occurring. As long as events continue to occur, a need for it to be shared and analyzed will remain. As long as there is this need, there will be journalists. As long as there are journalists, print and online media will live strong and remain an available outlet. 

There has been a trend across the nation of high school journalism programs being shut down. According to the Chicago Tribune, in an article titled "Lack of money, interest forcing many high schoolnewspapers to fold," this change can be attributed to an "era of tight school budgets, high-stakes testing and changing news consumption habits."

Mason High School has had some difficulty this year with broadcasting their student generated news program—MBC. Resulting from the change to semesters, teachers have refused to play the program due to ‘a lack of time’. While this change did not personally affect me, I can relate to them from a journalist perspective. Nobody’s hard work should be disregarded and go to waste. Quite to the opposite, the student body has a need to stay informed.

While not on anybody's radar, the potential of my high school’s own beloved newspaper shutting down saddens me. Working as a staff writer on The Chronicle has instilled in me a passion for journalism. It has not only greatly improved my writing abilities and people skills, but has been one of the key highlights of my high school career.

So if high school administrators feel that journalism is simply an elective that can be cut, they are wrong. I will fight for the  continued existence of our high school newspaper and the exercise of our First Amendment rights, because we need an educated and informed society.

The Chronicle Staff 2014-2015