Why I Chose to go Into Media
It was senior year of high school, and I got brought on as a community correspondent for Springfield High’s nascent magazine. For my very first story, my friend and I hauled ourselves to Yellow Springs for its biannual Street Fair. Things were off to a rocky start, as we spent the better part of half an hour looking for parking in this former college town.
When we thought we found a place to leave his car, I got out and let him hotbox it. I didn’t want to be high while conducting serious journalism, but I wasn’t going to stop him. Mid rip, this guy stepped out of the house we parked in front of and threatened to call the police if we didn’t leave.
“Didn’t you see the signs?” He scowled. I had no clue what he was talking about, until while walking away from the scene of the crime, I saw some itsy bitsy notices printed on office paper and skewered to the ground, kinda. Most of these signs had knocked over in the wind. So they were impaled by hopes and dreams, as far as I was concerned.
There’s a great paradox that’s haunting the era of history that America finds itself in. That is, how come we have unprecedented access to the perspectives, experiences, and presence of billions of people, and yet, it feels like empathy is on the decline and isolation is on the rise? Similarly, why do people have false pictures in their minds about those different from them when you can just shoot them a DM whenever you want? I don’t know why those things are going on, and I doubt I’ll ever find out why. But even though I don’t know how to do it best, I feel compelled to do something about it, and see what sticks.
Growing up, there were a lot of times that I wished that the kids and adults around me just understood things. Things about the world. Things about each other. Things about me. In my case I had a very peculiar set of circumstances, a very peculiar combination of disadvantages and advantages that the only person who came close to sharing all of them was my brother. It was very isolating and hard to make sense of.
Now that I’m in college, I’m grateful to be around people who share various experiences and, to use a woke word, intersectionalities. Sharing space with them makes my problems feel more surmountable and make me feel like I have people in my corner who understand what’s up. Tying all this into media, I really want to help people feel less alone by showing them others who they can relate to, by humanizing the subjects of a piece through open and honest dialogue.
After my friend found parking (for real this time) and we reconvened, my very first interview subject was this guy in a trance, swaying gently back and forth to the music of an open air concert.
“Hey! Would you mind being recorded for an interview?”
He shook himself out of nirvana. “Go for it!”
A part of me felt bad for interrupting his moment, but I realized I had to come to peace with being an annoying prick. That’s part and parcel of doing journalism.
I find media to be at the perfect intersection of creativity, opportunity, curiosity, and impact for me. I remember when I was 10 years old daydreaming about hosting a podcast with my crush. At that age, I’d prepare news reports and share them with my lunch table. With things like The Rose City Cardinals, I can scratch my childish itch for problem solving, design and learning. I hope the work that begins here sticks with some kid in the same way that Vox, Vice, Andrew Callaghan, and various travel YouTubers made me want to put on my shoes, hold a microphone, and try to tie in the experiences of the little guy with the issues facing society as a collective.
Really well produced media created with integrity made me see that reality was more than the oftentimes bleak day in and day out of my childhood and adolescence. It gave me hope and spurred my imagination to know that I could be just like Tintin if I played my cards right.
Over the next three hours, I went bouncing from booth to booth interviewing vendors and the like. Except, of those three hours, only about 15 minutes were spent actually talking to people. I was too afraid to bug people. So, I spent most of that time chattering my teeth nervously.
In my experience, people don’t take control of the political arena as much as they should. And this ends up hurting them substantially in the long run. Take, for example, local elections. Most people who actually go out and vote at the city or county level are homeowners. So, the local government is likely going to enact policies that benefit existing homeowners to the detriment of renters. For example local governments may limit housing construction through stringent zoning rules to artificially inflate property values, thereby appeasing the people who actually turn out to vote.
America used to have a very strong civic culture that built many of the advances we enjoy today. Unions and the NAACP led to the improvements in civil and labor rights that many take for granted today. The little guy would mingle with other little guys and get things done as a force to be reckoned with. Nowadays, as many people are less involved in interest groups on an individual level, their wants and needs are trounced by those who do organize with sustained energy.
Again, I think media has a role to play in closing this gap between The People™ and the issues they face. The media ought to make important issues less abstract, more accessible, more tangible to the person who feels they don’t have time for politics. It feels like so much of the news content out there is made in a way that facilitates a dick measuring contest with other journalists to see who’s more objective, who’s more intelligent, who’s more articulate. The American people are left in the dust.
It’ll likely take a very long time for myself and The Rose City Cardinals to master the balancing act of accessibility with thoroughness (is that a word?), but I want our attempts and trial and error to have a long term impact.
Wrapping up our escapade in Yellow Springs, my friend and I split a pie at my favorite pizza place in the whole wide world (Bentino’s). Reflecting on all that had happened, I realized I needed to start getting more confident if I wanted to achieve what I wanted (cheesy and basic lesson, I know).
I decided to start The Rose City Cardinals with Kat so that I could stop stalling on striving to educate and entertain the public, while also having childlike fun at the same time. Hopefully, getting up off my ass will mean something one day.
