Alums

Calvin Pynn, Class of ’12  | Published on Facebook Nov 11, 2016
I’ve had a lot to think about in the first full day since Trump’s win.

… I very recently re-entered the industry as a freelance reporter for public radio, but it was during that period of reclusion and inactivity earlier this year that Trump said that if elected president, he would open up libel law in a way that would allow him to retaliate against any news organization that presented him in the already outrageous image of himself that he cultivated. He’s proposed policies and made promises that give the LGBT, POC, Muslim and low income communities reason to fear for their well being, and I recognize that this issue regarding the media is small potatoes compared to the concerns they now legitimately have. For now, I’m speaking on this issue from the election that personally shook me to my core.

It seems now that the collective “media” as an entity has a vilified association on the mouths and keyboards of most Americans. I believe the major establishment outlets on both sides have, in part, earned such a negative association from the excessive sensationalism they’ve displayed during this election. I understand their agenda, but Jesus Murphy, the 24/7 news networks really screwed the pooch on this one. Unfortunately, that’s also given a bad name to the fourth estate as a whole that includes the objective, unbiased, and ultimately honest and hardworking journalists that simply uphold their first amendment rights to benefit everyone else (and to afford paper towels and deodorant, because life). The biggest problem I have perceived with the average American population on both sides in the past year is that most people seem to either be incapable of objective, rational thought, or they refuse to be capable. In the past week, a picture of a shirt on the back of a Trump supporter reading “Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some Assembly Required.” circulated, showing the dark places the lowest common denominator’s mind will go to to satisfy their hatred of those they disagree with. It’s old news at this point but oy vey, are we in for some rough times ahead.

Despite what he’s said, I don’t think Trump will successfully impose a regime that punishes and regulates journalists in America. He could try under the lightest of terms that he’s already announced, but ultimately I don’t believe it could happen. However, I can’t forget the fact that this past year, Trump called out a reporter he disagreed with by mocking his disability. He dismissed the ENTIRE press corps as disgusting and corrupt. He barricaded reporters at his rallies in strategically located corrals where he could point directly and ridicule them during his speeches. Back in the New River Valley and Southwest Virginia, those barricaded areas contained my peers and colleagues in the media – some of whom I consider friends representing outlets I have either worked for or competed against, and many of whom I commend for being more talented than myself and having the courage to take bigger risks.

Like every other issue that Trump has tainted, his supporters have followed his words and interpreted them to greater extremes. It’s pretty clear that a climate has been established by the mass of supporters for (I can’t believe I’m saying this) President-elect Trump that allows them to express wishes for the extreme backlash they would want to impose on anyone who publishes or broadcasts something they don’t like. Talk can only go so far, but it’s enough to generate some concern on my part, and for anyone else I know in the industry.

Journalism is nonviolent. Fair journalism is impartial. Well crafted journalism can change the status quo, challenge the powers that be, and champion those who could potentially be trampled under Trump’s presidential cabinet, and it is needed now more than ever. In the early morning hours following Trump’s win yesterday, I stayed up a little longer contemplating what exactly I’m going to do in the world we’re going to live in for the next four years. I’m a minor player here, but as I began reporting again just a short while before Trump was elected, I know our work is going to be cut out for me and those in similar positions for the near future. I admit that I have been easily intimidated and hesitant in my career in the past, it’s what caused me to back away and reevaluate the career path I was moving on, but going forward I know that’s something that I cannot afford to do again in the America we’re about to be living in. If there has ever been a public official to hold accountable, it’s Trump, and any other leader at lower levels taking unfair advantage of the chaos he has inspired.

Give ’em hell, kids.

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LeeAnn Scarberry | Class of 2015  | Published in The Tartan  Nov. 6. 2016
leeannscarberry13@gmail.com

It has almost been six months since I graduated from Radford University and left behind my job as the news editor at The Tartan.

I wish that I could tell you that I got my dream job at an amazing newspaper with great pay. Sadly, that is not the case. I work at a retail store making minimum wage and not sure if I even want to be a journalist.

I spent the last semester of college scared to graduate and face the “real world”. I thought at that time it was just normal nerves. Now I realize that it was not that I was scared to graduate, it was that I did not want a job in the subject that I studied for four years.

People would ask me why I wanted to be a journalist. I was never able to answer that question. The answer was usually, “I just like to write”. Which I did not think was a very good answer. I did like the writing just not the other things that were required to be a journalist.

The one thing that journalists need to be good at is communicating with people that they do not know. This was not something that I was good and in all honesty I hated doing it. I have always been an introvert and I have never heard of an introverted journalist.

I felt this way for almost the last two years in college, but did not know what else I would want to do. This was one of the reasons that I did not try something else.

While I was at Radford, I enjoyed working for The Tartan and what I learned while working there. I liked writing, reporting, and seeing my hard work be turned into a newspaper every week, but I did not like the idea of doing it for the rest of my life.

This realization came not very long after graduation when I started feeling like I wasted four years of my life studying something that I did not love. I applied to several jobs in my area that were for journalists, but did not really want to work at any of them.

I did not have one topic that I cared about enough to want to write about. I knew that I did not want to write about sports or courts. I definitely did not want to write about politics. I really only care about animals and books, but I did not want to write about those.

Now that I have realized this, I am currently in an in-between stage. I now have an idea of what I want to do with my life and have started taking the steps to get there. This would require me to go back to school, but this is something that I am willing to do.

I would not be able to do this until next fall, so until then I will just have to continue to work and hope that I get into the schools that I applied to.