When I was growing up, I was influenced by a lot of my close family members. Everyone in my family is known for our strong opinions in politics and ethics. They like to express what they believe in at family gatherings and through emails.
My grandfather used to work in advertising and public relations. He spent some time writing ads for companies as well as drawing and taking photos for the advertisements. When I got into the journalism and communications magnet at Manual, he gained a huge interest for journalism and politics. He doesn't work, so he spends a lot of time researching things on his laptop.
"Journalism is a very important aspect of our lives. It never really was a huge thing when I was growing up unless something really dramatic happened," he said. "But what you're doing, writing about current social issues, really means something."
After we discussed journalism and what goes into it, I wanted to ask him about journalistic right specifically.
We talked about how most of the documents and things that journalists reference are public records. I remembered a lesson we had in journalism 1 last year when we talked about how journalists are simply the conveyors of information, we don't tell you what to think, we tell you what to think about. He said that all the things that journalists do, regular people can do too if they try hard enough.
"Regular people have rights when it comes to accessing public records and talking to people who have something to say, so why shouldn't journalists?" he questioned.
I then talked with my father who agreed with my grandfather that journalists should have rights. They are people too and their job is to be loyal to the public. How can journalists do their job if they have no simple rights to a freedom of speech.
A lot of my close friends are also in the journalism and communications magnet at Manual so we share some similar values. All being student journalists, we want our constitutional rights to stay constitutional and we want them to be enforced by the people who say that they want to fight for what's right. We look up to the journalists and the people that point out when our rights are not being respected.
