Joel Shurkin, who earned a Pulitzer Prize reporting on the Three Mile Island disaster, seemed like the perfect candidate to inform the
Fairbanks public about the problems involving today’s press. He went on to say that
Jefferson is spinning in his grave because press isn’t as free as it once was due to corruption of journalism. He said Wall Street is looking more for instant gratification, therefore they create their own reality about the stock annalists, when these “annalists” actually have no idea what they are talking about. When these networks sell out the quality of news soon declined. There is also a lot of questions regarding the effect new media have on print. With new media combined with family companies selling out, managers are cutting foreign news. They have decided that people are more interested in community news, so they get most of their news from less reliable sources to replace foreign news.
Overall, the speech was depressing and left me with a hopeless feeling regarding news. With all these large stations only worried about profits, and the managers firing the editors on a stock annalists’ word, seems like a downer for young journalists seeking inspiration. He has been in the business a long time, and so it’s easy for me to know that he understands these things from experience. It seems he came to the university to inspire journalist majors so they can do their best to change things within these systems and worry more about than the story than the profit and stocks. The
Jefferson quote Shurkin ended with was brilliant as well as inspirational, “any country that is both ignorant and free simply can not be.” So what can the next generation do to make changes to this system?
--Jessica Hill
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