I am drawing to the end of my college career. I graduate in June, and closer to then there will probably be a nostalgic what-it-means-to-me in general sort of post. I had every faith in the college system coming to Northwestern, and since then that has largely disintegrated, but that is a bigger story than the one I aim for today.
I am a journalist who is graduating with a journalism degree who hates journalism. I don’t hate what it stands for, and good pieces of it still move me more than most other forms of writing ever could, but I don’t like the politics of journalism. I don’t like the pitching, the angles, the pre-destined and plotted plan for something being delivered under the label of unaltered “truth.” And writing within this system of forces not only makes me feel as though myself and my work is fake, I also feel like I am alternately begging or harassing people to “puleeaase be my source!” to write a mediocre story that I already decided the plot of. It’s bad truth and it’s bad fiction.
Pleasantly Piquant 