One student's reflection

Safia Sheikh is a graduate of the 2008 summer journalism program who plans to attend OSU in Fall 2009. Our staff asked her to make remarks at the program's graduation ceremony, on July 31, 2008. Here is what she said:

"Did you know that in the United States Constitution, the First Amendment guarantees freedom of the press? This means that people can receive the news and others can report it without fearing the government. That is not necessarily true for the many countries that don’t have this freedom. My journalism class learned about press freedoms from one of our speakers, Frank Smyth, who is from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Smyth, who came all the way from Washington D.C., talked to us about Nasteh Dahir Farah who was a contributor to BBC and The New York Times who was killed this past June in Kismayo, most likely because he wrote stories that certain people did not want printed. Somalia is rated the second most dangerous place for journalists, after Iraq.

These past five weeks, I have gained lot knowledge about the do’s and don’ts of Journalism. From how the paper is produced to the ethical issues involved with Journalism. I remember that on the first day of Journalism class we did an exercise to learn about some of our own biases and perspectives. It’s important to know your own biases so that you can try to put them aside when trying to deliver information.

We also learned about what news is and how news is different based on where you get that news. To illustrate this point, one of our speakers, Jeff Sheban, from the Columbus Dispatch, made us listen to a 15 minutes news segment from both NPR and BBC and we understood that BBC has more details of the news than NPR.

One of the most interesting and one of the only few times that the class has given their undivided attention was the field trip to the Dayton Daily News print center. That day we learned that newspapers take many machines and effort to make to your front door before the news gets old.

Our class investigated the cars of both of our teachers, Mike Lorz and Stephanie Calondis, to learn to be observant and to practice asking open ended questions. Another day we went on a photo scavenger hunt to take pictures of the city of Columbus. Some class mates went to Easton, downtown, OSU, global mall and Banaadir mall. I remember that one of the problems our group faced was that people there did not want their pictures taken. Later that week our class contacted the head of the ethics committee from the society of professional journalism to ask about how to handle different ethical situations. From him we learned that there is no black and white when looking at ethical issue but that it is a process that you have to go through.

Over the past week our class experienced the process of putting paper together and what a typical newsroom is like. We had to interview people from different backgrounds to get answers to our questions. Sometimes we had challenges, including people who wouldn’t answer or pick up the phone. Eventually we interviewed enough people to write an article on. Even then we had to go through the process of putting all our ideas together and work as a group. Our teachers edited and finalized the paper to make sure that the articles were complete. Although this process was challenging and even frustrating at times, in the end we can be sure that it was all worth it.

News is something that will always be needed. As Frank Smyth from the CPJ told us as long as people continue to seek for that news and seek for the truth, then we can be sure that Journalism will always be around. Even if I do not choose to become a professional Journalist, I am glad to know that there are people working in that job to bring us the truth and now we all have a better understanding of what that means."