Being a journalist

There are certain things in my everyday life that remind me of why I want to be a journalist. Last week, when we had a visitor (pardon me for forgetting his name) from Scott’s Lawn Care talk to us about the PR side of his job, I came to a realization.

The visitor was talking about how people in MiracleGro’s customer relations/social media sector are constantly monitoring what others are saying on social media about MiracleGro and gardening in general. They spend their days searching for feedback on products through social media sites; these are the people who found Selena Gomez’s Instagram post with the MiracleGro bag in it.

When I heard the visitor discuss these people and their jobs as social media monitors, I wanted to write about them. I wanted to tell their story to the world. This is what makes me a journalist.

Instead of wanting to become one of those people, I wanted to tell their story. This is what differentiates journalists from public relations workers.

Something else happened earlier that week as well. When talking with a few of my teammates about something random (I forget what), one of my friends asked about different ways to fit a thought into a sentence. One of my teammates, who is an engineer, expressed his thoughts and then said to end the sentence with a “decimal.”

As a journalist and someone with an interest in English & literature, I automatically assume that the dots at the end of sentences are called “periods.” The difference between those who think they are called “decimals” and those who think they are called “periods” is the difference between engineers and journalists. People with different passions have different mindsets, which is reflected in situations like this.

Although these two situations may not seem like much of anything, I thought they adequately showed the reason why I want to be a journalist and not a public relations worker or an engineer.