Journalism is a privilege that not every American citizen can understand. Journalists get to use their platform for what they believe is important, such as news pieces, opinion pieces, sports coverage, feature articles, and more topics that involve giving information to the public in a specific format.

With journalism, we have the freedom to question or write about what we want and put it out for the world to either agree or argue with, and it’s your job to be a part of it in some way.

American Society of News Editors is an organization that provides a census on the number of American citizens that are employed in a Journalistic field year by year.

They state, “overall, [we] found, there are about 32,900 full-time journalists at nearly 1,400 daily newspapers in the United States. That’s a 3,800-person decrease from 36,700 in 2013.”

With this data, we see that journalism is losing its writers and fewer students are looking into journalism as a career. This is surprising because I would expect people of this generation want to get their views and voices out there as much as possible, considering we are the “social media” generation.

People might be afraid to speak their mind, but you don’t have to speak it because you can write it. If we don’t participate in journalism and writing, I feel that we will lose a very important outlet. Journalism is another way of exercising our right to freedom of speech and the press.

President Trump has used the phrase: “the press is the enemy of the people.” The biggest contradiction that I see with this statement is that, as journalists, we are the people and the press is our voice. But he also introduced the term “fake news,” which has created fear in newsrooms everywhere.

Margaret Simons, a reporter for The Guardian, stated in the article “Journalism faces a crisis worldwide- we might be entering a new dark age” that “there is a new concern for the virtues of the traditional newsroom, and what good journalists do. That is, find things out, verify the facts and publish them in outlets which, despite famous stuff-ups, can generally be relied upon to provide the best available version of the truth.”

With fake news becoming an everyday concern for American citizens, journalists have had to step up their game and be as reliable as they can be. But this isn’t a downfall, it’s a challenge to be better and to be more reliable.

There is nothing more satisfying than knowing you’re responsible for giving someone solid information on a topic that you’re just as passionate about as they are.

Within the realm of journalism, we can be the change and show that we are here to help inform and support the people, and not become their enemy.

“The news is delivered to enlighten us, and to shape the world, as we know it, without it would we know anything,” Stephanie Pavlich said, a journalism student at Centennial College. “Without the news, I would find life a little meaningless, and quite frankly dull. I wanted to be a reporter to ignite fire into the stagnate minds of tomorrow.”

Not only would we be uninformed if we didn’t have journalists, but we would lose our voice. Even if you’re not a writer, you can still support the cause be being a reader.

Journalism is here to help our community, not hurt it.

Help yourself by staying updated on current events and you will also be helping by giving a journalist a sense of purpose. As for those who enjoy writing, you can make a difference with your words, just don’t forget to cite your sources.