More than a year ago, I walked into the third floor of Witherspoon Student Center, with a laptop in my bag and opinions galore bouncing around in my mind. I was excited at the prospect of having my thoughts on politics, the presidential election and everything NC State in print once a week, as I became a part of the Technician staff.
Writing is hard, and accepting this didn’t take too long for me to do. A seemingly simple task that I considered myself to be good at became mundane, and coming up with a new idea for a column every week began to drain on me as the months started to go by. This became coupled with a presidential election that, although gave me inspiration for a plethora of columns, never ceased to discourage me from writing about a topic because I simply didn’t want to deal with any backlash that might have come from the other side.
This is wildly ironic for anyone who knows me, or thinks that they know me. Many people will be quick to jump in and say that “he always speaks his mind,” regarding a variety of topics. In high school, I even won the superlative for “Most Likely to Get Into an Argument.”
How is it then, that someone so ingrained with the mindset of challenging ideas and creating discourse through thoughts and words would be afraid to write certain thoughts, out of fear of receiving backlash and stepping on too many toes?
I wanted the likes. I wanted the positive comments. I wanted the praise. I wrote what I thought the audience wanted to hear, and I did it for myself.
That’s not to say that I changed my views and wrote opinions that I disagreed with for the sake of positive praise. If there’s one that I can say about my time as a writer, it’s that I never completely betrayed my true thoughts.
I simply suppressed them.
November quickly made its way around, and a series of circumstances manifested themselves into a fruition where I found myself serving as Interim Assistant Opinion Editor and eventually Opinion Editor of the section I had only been a part of for half a year. This was coupled with what I, and many others, saw as a nightmare scenario for the American people, made possible through the very foundation of the democratic society that we occupy.
Donald Trump became president of the United States.
In the inaugural edition of Technician, the founding board wrote: “The very spirit that to make a student body a mass of live wires is totally lacking unless some outlet and some encouragement to their many ideas is found.”
Suddenly, there was an understanding of the necessity of the free press and particularly, this newspaper, to encourage the very discourse that I was so hesitant to stir up. Technician is, and always will be, dedicated to the notion of quality, accountable student journalism. In order to challenge ideas, those must not be afraid to speak freely, not only without the pressure of negative comments and backlash toward their article, but also without a dedication to pleasing the majority viewpoint of the readership.
In an era filled with claims of “fake news” and renewed attacks against the very foundation of the First Amendment, there has never been a more crucial time for the so-called independent watchdog to take its mantle in telling the truth at a federal, state and even university level, by ensuring veracity and functionality within administration, Student Government and other organizations across the campus.
It shouldn’t take an explanation of the importance of journalism, but here we are, and it’s because of this that I’m changing my focus and dedication. While there is a necessity for subjective journalism in society, I’ve been confronted with the realization that it’s quite simply not as important as reporting the facts. I passionately love this section and always will, but next year I will be serving as Assistant News Editor for Technician, instead of my current role.
In a quest for veracity, I’ve come across the realization that the quickest way to ensuring that notion is to simply report the facts, which is what I’m dedicated to doing. No spins on the data, no trying to make the content appealing to the ideological majority of the readership and no sacrificing of my personal beliefs in the words that make it to print.
To encourage the student body and the “mass of live wires” that was spoken almost 100 years ago, it takes a dedication to hearing the students and ensuring that the focus is on them, first and foremost. It’s not about pleasing them or simply preaching to them, but rather listening and telling, to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
When I publish something and share it on my personal Facebook the next day, I still enjoy seeing the likes pile up. It doesn’t take a magnificent source of narcissism for someone to be willing to admit that, but rather a realization that the feedback shouldn’t be a driving force for the notion of informing a population, and in my last few months in the role of Opinion Editor, this has become more and more relevant and obvious to me with the pieces that I write, edit and publish.
It’s about serving the student body, which I’ve tried to do, and what I’m going to continue to try to do.
In HBO’s “The Newsroom,” Charlie Skinner tells Will McAvoy about how they changed the style and content of their nightly broadcast and, subsequently, did the news better, by stating that they simply “just decided to.”
In the same vein … I also just decided to. I decided to stop caring about the likes, comments and feedback.
People don’t just choose their opinions and news anymore. They choose their facts. And here, in 2017, it’s our duty to fight back against “alternative facts,” discrepancies and downright lies that are spat out under the pseudonym of truth. Technician has been tasked for 97 years with defending truth. We’re not, and I’m not stopping anytime soon.
If there’s one thing that I’ve learned in my time as opinion editor, it’s that journalism is unquestionably the most consistent and important aspect of the United States’ experiment. America is the only country on Earth that has, since the beginning of its existence, said “we can do better” in every regard, as time and society presses on. We try, we sometimes fail, but nonetheless, we beat on against the current of adversity and tribulation to provide a more perfect union. The very First Amendment to our founding document promises that a free press will always exist, so long as America exists.
America exists, Technician exists and although my time in Opinion has passed, I assure you that the quest for truth will always continue.
