Many students with majors woven into the media world have a passion for the subject they are studying. Three sophomores in the IU Media School said this was what they wanted to do regardless of the negative views that have been vocalized by President Trump.
Public relations student Erika Szafranski said she has known for a while that this is the field in which she wants to build her career.
“I have always been interested in high school, so it wasn’t a recent decision,” Szafranski said. “Obviously I don’t think it’s great that people bash the media, but everyone uses it.”
However, simply because students like Szafranski are sure that this is the path they want to take, it is not void of concern. Media advertising student Jenna Hanke said she does not want to become a part of the “fake news” misconception.
“The only concern is that people would be quick to assume that I’m going to be just like everyone else and won’t give me a chance to prove them wrong,” Hanke said.
Marketing and sales student Kaylee Slont said students are reminded of the difficulty that comes along with this field. Slont said she has noticed the aggression against her chosen news sources.
“I get my news from CNN, and it gets trashed every day,” Slont said.
Szafranski points to the negative climate in the field right now but says there is room for improvement.
“There is a lot of fighting in the media and a lot of negativity,” Szafranski said. “There is a lot that needs to be done to improve it.”
With mandatory ethics courses, IU’s Media School tries to teach students students the right way to go about their careers. With this, Hanke said she thinks things could get better.
“I think that there’s a chance that it could be better if people in the field now and people in the future make a conscious effort,” Hanke said, “But there are also a lot of factors that make it easy to bash the media.”
These three media majors, however, have responses regarding people giving the media a bad reputation.
“We all know that the media is bad right now,” Szafranski said. “People use the media — social media specifically — to display their thoughts. I don’t think that it is necessarily the people who work for the media’s fault. I think it’s the way that society is using it.”
Slont focused on the way to read sources.
“Always check your facts, where the article is coming from,” Slont said, “Go based off of more than one article.”
