One of the questions we were asked at the beginning of the semester has continued to ring out to me the entire time; what role does the activist play on campus? My personal answer has been altered many times during the course of the semester for a number of reasons, including different experiences I’ve shared with students and staff, conversations I’ve taken part in, and finally the writing I’ve completed.
My penultimate conclusion was that it played a minute role for a niche group of faculty and students. However, after talking to students I have realized this is not the case by any means. To me the Activist plays a role in maintaining some aspects of the culture we lived in before the personal technology boom early in the twenty-first century.
I’ve come to believe that it’s important to remember where we come from, and as Americans that isn’t always easy, but journalism should be a distinct memory we share. Our first amendment right is something we take for granted but it is the reason that journalism has flourished in our country. Even though we’re not exposing fraud on a national scale or bring light to scandals that would rack the nation we’re still playing a vital role in honoring the First Amendment.
To me writing for the Activist is doing just that; I feel as though I’m honoring the First A
mendment and enacting on my personal right to engage in free speech. My articles haven’t been the center of huge controversy and I doubt my opinion pieces were read on that wide a scale. Still, I feel as though writing honestly for any news medium is a way to honor our freedoms.
Writing for our paper was enjoyable throughout the semester because I got to cover what was important or interesting to me as a person and as a student. Aside from a few university related, informative articles, I wrote entirely about things that caught my eye, sparked my imagination, or just tickled my curiosity. I pictured myself solely as a music reviewer for the paper but as my tasks expanded far beyond this I saw myself growing as a writer and as a thinker.