There’s a reason I’m a journalist.

               So, I’m in between classes, way to stressed to even spell my own name, but somehow Carol suckered me in to promising I’d go hear Steven Kinzer speak. I hobble down the stairs of the student center, the weight of midterms bogging me down and halfway collapse in my chair next to Dr. Wirth. It turns out I’m the first one there. So here I am, sitting next to a PhD and an effing New York Times reporter. I felt really cool for about a half a second.  Anywho. His talk was outstanding (sans his bit about how important it is to blog). I’ll never see the light on that issue. This guy was amazingly amazing. Outstandingly outstanding. There is a reason why Mike and I kept looking at each other, saying, “Wow. That’s exactly what I think.”Let me just give some highlights, since I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who took notes.  —He said there is nothing more important than writing regularly, no matter where. This is close to my heart, seeing as how I write in my journal every single day, and I write a few letters every week. I’m not at my best spiritually when I am not writing. — “There are two sets of skills for a journalist: writing and reporting,” he said. He said he hates nothing more than people who can write and use that skill to cover up a lack of reporting.  —Journalism is all about the psychological mindset. “Move away from the idea that you represent the powerful,” Kinzer said.  ”Instead, be the voice of the people who have no voice. The people who have the most amazing stories have no way of getting their stories out there. THIS IS THE REAL REASON TO BE A JOURNALIST.” He said the government can’t tell you what to write, they can merely suggest. It is we who set the agenda. —”There are no boring lives, just boring stories,” he said. “If you wrote something bad, it’s not because of that person, it’s because YOU didn’t find it.” He said we have to be aggressive to find out what’s going on beneath the surface of society. “It’s all about telling stories. There is something inside the human soul that loves hearing stories.” —There is a distinct difference between objectivity and fairness. “Emphasize the stories of people who have honest grievances with power,” he said. That was helpful for me. I wonder every time when I write something, “Am I writing this because it’s my agenda or because it matter to people?” He answered that question. My agenda is to write something that will matter to people, either the people in my stories or my readers (or, hopefully, both). He encouraged all of us to be “champions for change” and to be offbeat. —Be unpopular. “We are the check on the government. We should be unpopular,” Kinzer said. Well, if you look back to one of my first blogs, I was grappling with the fact that I am going to take shit for the rest of my life because I live, breathe and eat journalism. Kinzer said, that’s the way it should be. — “When a person has access to a journalist, they have access to power,” he said. Minus the gramatical error in that quote, it means a lot because he’s not talking about the government here, either. He means we give power to the powerless. —One last bit tat really helped me out was the idea that journalists should look at news differently. When I asked him for some story idea-gathering tips, this is what he said, “Journalists should not read the paper the same way a civillian does.” I like the fact that he used the word “civillian.” Maybe it’s just years of war corresponance, or maybe he looks at journalism as a battlefield. I prefer the latter. He told us to look behind the story and ask why the paper is running it.”  So… yeah, that was my Monday. Pretty nice, eh? I got to chill with a bona-fide news man. Mike, we’ll be touring colleges someday. I can guarantee it.