Journalism

***These quotes are not exact, but they are basically what the man I spoke with said. I also didn't get his full name, and will abstain from posting his first name at all.***

When I decided that I wanted to be a journalist, I also had a second profession in the back of my mind, a back-up plan. I find myself frequently questioning Plan A, but when I think about Plan B, I fall in love with the idea of writing stories that could save the world all over again. Today, I was taught that journalism as a profession itself really needed it's own revolution.

I volunteer at least one day on most weekends through a local teen leadership/community service collaboration  Today, I was volunteering at the boathouse of a lake near my house. Within the first twenty minutes of my 5-hour shift, I got to talking to a fisherman in a US Marines T-shirt who was sitting near the dock. Our conversation began as me answering a few innocent questions to myself and my fellow volunteer's school and classes. I ended up casually mentioning that I aspired to be a journalist despite my strengths in math and science.

"Journalist?" He practically sputtered the word, as if it were a bitter taste in his mouth. "When I was in the service, we hated journalists."

"Why?" I guessed why, but I needed to be sure. I don't remember word for word what he said next because I obviously don't bring my nonexistent handy dandy tape recorder to the boathouse with me.

"They don't write the truth. They just write was sells. They're only interested in what puts them ahead in the business, not about talking about the actual news When something happens, they don't investigate details - they jump upon the conclusion favorable to sales."

"So, they lie?"

"No, they just don't tell the whole truth." This man was a US Marine and served in Grenada. What he pointed out to me was that journalists in war zones tended to write about what they wanted, and only covered parts of the story. He gave me the example of Jessica Lynch.

"The American media immediately hooked on this heart-wrenching story of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed 19 year old girl, who fired her weapon at her captors until she ran out of ammunition, then switched to hand-to-hand combat before being too injured to fight back. "That's not what happened. The media didn't even mention the other men and women with her, who did fight back. She didn't. She hid under the truck." I told him I'd not heard the story, but when I came home I did look it up.

The story of Jessica Lynch happened when I was 8 and 9 years old, before I was old enough to pay half a mind to the news. While my acquaintance got some of the details wrong, the important facts were correct and his point was taken. The Washington Post seemed to have fabricated the idea that Lynch fought hand to hand, that Lynch even fought back at all. "I did not shoot, not a round, nothing. I went down praying to my knees. And that's the last I remember." "That wasn't me. I'm not about to take credit for something I didn't do... I'm just a survivor."

At the time, I went ahead and took this former Marine's word for the story. In my head, I was thinking, that's one story, so what? Journalists make mistakes.Then, he made several more points.

"Say, there's a baby sitting on a land mine. Four or five American soldiers walk by, and the baby gets up. Boom. Kills the soldiers and the baby. [Both foreign and American] media will say, look, the troops killed this innocent baby. But no, it was the foreign insurgents. They planted the mine, they put the baby there."

"You know Grenada?"

"Hmm?"

"Grenade-a, Gre-nah-da, whatever."

"Oh, yeah."

"I served there. Before all our troops got there, the American media was already there. They knew we were coming. Before we got there, one of our pilots was executed, and Time Magazine published the pictures with his hands tied back and him shot... he was castrated and shot by Grenadians. How did the magazine get the photograph if they weren't with the enemy?"

"When I was there, sometimes, my weapon would be next to me, like here on the bench, and my ammunition would be over there where you are," he said, gesturing a distance of about 15 feet. "Troops in Iraq are having the same problem, because of politicians sticking their nose where they don't belong. We're supposed to be diplomatic. The diplomatic approach doesn't work. They'll be getting shot at, then when picking up their weapon, the shooting insurgent will pick up a kid and flip the US soldier a bird, knowing that the US soldier can't shoot without risking an innocent life."

I did some digging on the subject. While I couldn't find the photograph by Time, I did find the Operation that he probably was talking about. Operation Urgent Fury in 1983, the biggest US invasion since Vietnam. The only Marine Corps involved in the ground invasion task force was from here in North Carolina, fitting the man's age and location. I read up on it, but I couldn't fully understand the extent of the matter.

I did, however, find proof of what he said about "fighting a war without bullets." More than one source says that commanders ordered their forces not to load their weapons unless given the direction, and that they only gave that direction after the enemy insurgents opened fire. That's a political thing, not journalistic, but the sentiment is the same.

The American media does report suicide bombs and bombers with blame falling on the foreign forces, but I do also see that there's a blatant anti-troop agenda with a lot of news stories. Sometimes, I read of a situation, and scratch my head, thinking, how does that even work?

"What your name?"

"Chichi."

"What's your last name?"

"Zhu."

"Chichi Zhu. I'll be looking out for you in the news, on TV and such in the near future. In the next 15 years or so."

"Maybe, by then, journalism will be back to what it should be: truth." He nodded at me in response. Journalism's purpose is not to win Pulitzers. It's not a quest for notoriety, it's not a political tool. World news journalism, at it's finest, is informing the public where their brothers, sister, neighbors are doing, fighting some war across the seas. When I become real journalist, I'm going to do just that. Thank you for your service, Mr. Marine. I promise,  nothing but the truth.