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I entered the field in Eastern Europe, where a free press was a brand new thing and highly respected. I came back to the US full of lofty ideals about civic duty and journalism's role in a democratic society. I was intensely disappointed in the state of journalism here and have since moved into a different field.
The double standard regarding the Iraq War was the breaking point for me. If you had no opinion or supported the war, it was not considered a conflict of interest to cover politics during the leadup to it but if you opposed the war openly, many people believed it was a conflict of interest. This explains in my mind the huge failure of the American press to serve the interests of the people regarding this war, something that has since been documented.
So I left and moved into other writing oriented fields, which left me free to be an activist on my own time.
I loved journalism. I still love and believe in what it is supposed to be. I do think it ought to be a public trust and a public service, and that we respect it so little because we didn't spend 40 years without it.
