I hate journalism, too. I also hate advertising, which is the same thing. But, I find it all fascinating. Not the articles you read (or don't read in my case) day in and day out, but the whole horrible structure of it all. I had really disorganized feelings on this until I read the following, which started setting me straight:
"Look at the structure of that whole system. What do you expect the news to be like? Well, it’s pretty obvious. Take the New York Times. It’s a corporation and sells a product. The product is audiences. They don’t make money when you buy the newspaper. They are happy to put it on the worldwide web for free. They actually lose money when you buy the newspaper. But the audience is the product. The product is privileged people, just like the people who are writing the newspapers, you know, top-level decision-making people in society. You have to sell a product to a market, and the market is, of course, advertisers (that is, other businesses). Whether it is television or newspapers, or whatever, they are selling audiences. Corporations sell audiences to other corporations. In the case of the elite media, it’s big businesses."
This is just a tiny excerpt of Noam Chomsky's, What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream. You can find the entire piece here: http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm
Maybe try looking at journalism from another angle? This may inspire you -- it may not. It will definitely not impress your professor. But, whatever the case, it's something to get out of bed for.
_________________
Put the curse of loneliness on every boy and every girl,
Until everybody's kickin', everybody's scratchin',
Everything seems to fail ?
And it was all for the want of a nail.
16 Nov 2010, 4:04 am
