Journalism, responsibility and first weeks of class

A whirlwind of Mondays and here we are beginning our week again. Our whole day is absorbed with questions of story telling and responsibility. The responsibility that journalists have to the stories we cover. How to overcome our natural ADD tendencies. And the importance of quoting people on what they MEANT, as well as on what they said.

We profile other students in the class and ask each other that question, the one we all keep hidden in the depths of us -- why do we want to be journalists?

Curiosity? To legitimize our own noisiness?
Wanting to know prople's secrets, because we believe all people have them?
The desire to understand? To know why someone ticks and how the world looks to them?
Because we want to connect?

I feel as though I am looking through a murky lake that is gradually become clearer. I can start to distinguish between us all; our small habits, our ups and downs, our different varying tendencies, our hesitancy giving way to our real characters. And we are real characters - there are hints in the corner of unfinished sentences that set the scene for our own personal histories. Yet here, for two years we will all bumble along together and try to become better writers, better conversationalists, better communicators. And most importantly, it seems, we are also to become better listeners - for the job of a journalist is to listen and hear, not just what people have said, but what they meant to say.

On the edge of all this is a horrible case unfolding in the midst of our beat - two parents arrested under suspicion for killing their son. We are told that we must not convict before the law courts have condemned them.

CG, our professor, writes in latin on our whiteboard: it is the mantra for this class.

1. Fiat Lux - Shed Light
2. Scribere emendatus - Take notes without error
3. No seas pendejo - Don't be an asshole

The journey here has felt long, but I could not have asked for a more fulfilling destination than the start of this new adventure.