What is Journalism?

If you are a part of my generation, I bet you can't remember the last time you read a newspaper. However, the last time on social media was probably a matter of hours ago. This would seem absurd to the next generation, but is really just our reality. This makes the number of news sources skyrocket. There are papers, television, online sources, and social media sites such as facebook, twitter, instagram and tumblr. Many of these are targeted at completely different audiences.

Television has always been not only a source of entertainment, but also news. This has been a new version of news for a while, but recently we have realized there is someething much higher up on the scale and that is the internet. The only time I will ever turn on the news is because is because I saw something important trending on twitter. After seeing that, I will go onto the news because they are a much more reliable source to give me the information. Social media gives me immediate updates on current event, where as the news gives me reliable information if I choose to find out more.

This being said, I think that journalism does not just have to be news. I believe that almost everything is journalism. My definition of journalism would be as follows: communication where another person retains something of substance.

There are only a few things that I do not consider journalism. Firstly, I think that there has to be an audience of some sort. That could just be you talking to your mom, or writing for the Star Tribune. If you are writing in your diary that you will burn before anyone ever reads, that wouldn't count. As long as someone else will hear, see, or understand what you are communicating, it is journalism.

I also believe that this communtication has to be something of substance. Almost everything is "of substance" so that isn't a very hard regulation to follow. As long as it isn't a random combination of letters, it means something. Even words that aren't technically words are of substance because they

have meaning to some people. For instance the term "asdfghjkl" may mean absolutely nothing to some people, but to some internet folk, it is totally understandable. However, 20 years ago nobody would think of that as something of substance. This just goes to show that the definition of journalism can change as society does.

One person talking to another person, I think, is journalism. It doesn't really matter if it important or news. You don't have to read the largest audiences or write for the best people to be a journalist. Every can be, and is, a journalist .