Impactful Journalism

Working as the editor of a national magazine, for me journalism often ends up as work to be finished. Beginning of every month the magazine has to be out. As the dates on the calendar rapidly change, I franticly work at completing the magazine and sending it to the press. Most stories had no impact, meaning having a marked effect or influence on readers, and honestly they are not aimed at impact; rather stories are aimed at completing 44 pages on magazine; and for most people journalism stops there. There is no passion, there is no heart; there was only language, structure, and of course sense and meaning. People appreciated it for the sense it had, the structure of the story, and the layout of the page. There are times I feel I am stuck there.

What is impact? It is the action of one coming forcibly into contact with another; it is a story encountering a people face to face; it is an essay taking on a people to demand responsibility and accountability. This needs real guts and commitment.

Articles have to be a debate. A speech may be informative and may sound good; and because it is sounding good people often do not question what is said there.There needs to be conflict for any conversation to be true; it may be more right to say there needs to be possibilities of diverse and opposing views in an article for it to be genuine. There needs to be possibilities of perspectives for any conversation to be just and right. Or it becomes merely being nice, it becomes intellectual, spiritual, moral pretention; it is an easy kind of consensus.

Journalism

Bringing debating to your articles is the key for impactful journalism. To have a debate in the essay written by a single person, one needs to know both or more sides of the story, and be unbiased.

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