In the Year 2040

In the year 2040, I will be 49 years old. That year, I do not know where I will be. However, there are a few things I can assume about that seemingly far future. In the year 2040, I will most likely be plastering my face with cosmetics to fight off wrinkles. I will most likely be complaining about gray hairs and absolutely dreading my upcoming birthday. Or, if the Mayan calendar is right, I won’t have a birthday to celebrate that year along with the rest of humanity. If the earth is still here in 2040 and wrinkles are happily creasing my face, I wonder what will have become of those lovely, ambitious goals that preoccupied my childhood daydreams.

In my Communications 239 class, we watched a documentary entitled “Stop the Presses: The American Newspaper in Peril.” In the film, a journalism educator made a prediction regarding the year 2040. That year, he predicted, the last newspaper will be recycled. Well, I am glad to hear that recycling will still be alive and well in the year 2040. However, in the year 2040, I don’t think I will let the last newspaper fall into one of those green bins. If anything else, I plan to retrieve the last newspaper from the recycling bin and mount it on my wall.

Social media is increasingly pushing newspapers into recycling bins. As newspapers move over to the web, I am left standing, with my reporter’s notebook in hand, wondering what I am to do. When I am asked about what I would like to major in, my reply, is always “print journalism.” When my professor mentioned the new name for the major: “multi-media journalism,” I was taken back. In my childhood daydreams I imagined a newspaper under my arm. I imagined the black and white ink spelling out stories. I simply did not imagine scrolling through web pages to see the headlines.

While my fingers still linger on the newspaper, I acknowledge the need to utilize technology. With blogging and newspapers online, social media is affecting news in ways that are not without its advantages. Social media, as discussed in class, creates a way for citizens to communicate with one another. When I look at articles online, I scroll down after finishing the story because I am curious. I am curious to see the comments left by users. Below an article, there is a complicated conversation to consider. The ability for citizens to voice their opinions so directly to a journalist’s opinions or findings generates greater conversation and thought. I cannot ignore that great advantage.

Social media will, indeed, change the role of a reporter. A reporter will have to work on a web-based deadline. Stories will have to come in sooner to appease the 24/7 web world as mentioned in class. Some may argue that journalists will not be needed. Some wonder if bloggers will take over news delivery. I believe, however, that journalists will always be needed. I don’t say this just so I can happily pursue my goal of becoming a journalist. I say this because journalists are needed. More is expected of journalists than bloggers. I read blogs and take their news with a bit of skepticism. Bloggers have no editors and no pledge to the truth that they must stand beside. Journalists do.

Yes, even if in the year 2040 I am scrounging around in a recycling bin for the last newspaper, journalists will still be needed. Journalists are needed so that they can be a nation’s proclaimed and dedicated truth seekers.

In my childhood daydreams, I imagined that if I ever got the chance to say “stop the presses!” it would be a movie moment. I imagined that I would run in with windblown hair and a notebook in hand with the story solved, the interviewee finally found, and the truth uncovered. Then I would triumphantly say, “stop the presses!” But, now, as I see printing presses slowing down and the pages no longer churning from their belts, I feel like shouting, “Never mind! Keep the presses going!” I am not quite ready to see the printing presses stop. But I suppose that so long as journalism continues, even on the Web, my lovely, childhood daydreams will continue too.