Waterford Whispers News is an Irish satire news site that posts comical R-rated ‘news’ articles that are not meant to be taken seriously. Titles of these articles include: Local Mother Doesn’t Know What To Make For The Dinner, “Again, Again!” Says Delighted Trump After Big Bang Sparkly Flash Zoom, Panic As Woman Accidentally Likes Nemesis’s Profile Pic While Stalking Account and Week Dragging Out.
In an article written in February, Did Kylie Jenner Get A Boob Job? Why Am I Being Paid To Write About This S***e? the journalist goes into a semi-rant about studying journalism for years to get a degree, to only be assigned to write about news that is non-meaningful. The author then lists topics that could be written that have substance and should be written about, like “the dearth of women entering STEM courses in college.”
Being a journalism student, this topic hit hard. The site is obviously made to be humorous and not taken seriously, but when jokes prove a solid point, they are hard to ignore.
If I ever were to get a job in the career of journalism, would I be assigned to write things I don’t care about? How does one put time and effort into these things when they know they aren’t being used for impact or change? Does every journalism experience this feeling? And if so, why aren’t they coming out about it more often?
In Cabrini’s journalism class, we were taught that we should care about what we put our names on as journalists; that if we put our name on something that is sub-par, then we are considered the same. If we were to write something that we aren’t proud of, then it shows. We, as students, were all encouraged to write with meaning, with the intent to be an advocate for a social justice issue.
The satire article made a point: why are people being paid to write about things that don’t impact others? The simple answer is because some people, the things that don’t make a difference in the world are things that they want to read about.
As a journalist in college, I am given freedom to write about things that matter to me, and maybe people in the journalism career don’t have the opportunity to do that in their job. If given the opportunity to write for a publishing site, I would hope that I always have the ability to produce journalism that could reach out to someone and evoke feelings in them.