The commitment

We've kicked off writing on our web-hosted newspaper and I'm happy to report that I've been appointed as the Editor for the Campus beat. It's not a smooth sailing, of course. Here are some moments which make it worthwhile.

Our teacher declared at the very beginning how this course will be "a commitment throughout the semester." For me, the commitment mainly comprises of editing the work that is flowing in and making sure that the flow of news is not interrupted. The reporters on the campus beat are committed to learning although what I'm noticing more than ever before is how we are, as a class, afraid of messing up. I don't know at which point in our lives were we taught that it is a terrible thing to make a mistake. I don't know where this began. I do know that this isn't OK. This is not healthy. I'm committed to learning from the mistakes I have made and I'm human. So it alright - breathe, breathe, breathe - to mess up. To know that you have made a mistake and to work on fixing it and learning from it is the next step.

a timeless example from "How I Met Your Mother"

One more lesson from this week:
There is a huge difference between emailing a source and calling a source for a response. In the latter, you get what Sir Waqas calls "a flavour of their response" to the news. The pauses, changes in breathing, and the tone itself can tell so much about how they feel about what they are sharing. It is a trust that a journalist is imparted with and so, making sure you're on the receiving end (of the call, the receiver and the news) is something you should not be taking lightly.

In another news - which is somewhat related to news reporting - I finally watched the documentary Citizenfour! It is brilliant although I do not know how my response to this should be. Should I shut off every device I own? Should I re-evaluate what I'm sharing and with whom? If their intention is to scare me - if they know that I know that they're reading and watching and listening in on every conversation - it's not going to prevent me from doing what I should be doing. As journalists living outside the U.S., it is more complicated and dangerous for us. "Believe me when I say that the surveillance we live under is the greatest privilege when compared with how we treat the rest of the world," says Edward Snowden.

Sam Waterston, who performed the role of Charlie Skinner in The Newsroom, once said, "I think a lot of people go into journalism because they hope it will be reporting the news well and then they realize it is corrupted. I think people carry that idealism with them even if they carry it in a secret place."

I cannot give up so easily though. We can still fix things. Technology and privacy are not inherently incompatible. In fact technology can make privacy more practical. In a show of faith and trust in our capabilities, our teacher said to us this week:

.آپ لوگ کام کریں گے