Good ol’ Fluffy Journalism!

Entertainment is not Journalism. I’ve heard it plenty of times before, and I’m sure as hell I will hear it a million times over before I leave school in April.

It’s nothing but fluffy journalism that should take a back seat to the hard news that EVERYONE cares about.  The journalism that everybody skips over when it comes to newspapers or TV.

But then again, that’s why show’s like E! and magazines like Rolling Stone are doing so well, right?

I just don’t understand why this particular field of journalism can’t be taken seriously. When I am talking to professional journalists, and they ask me what part of the field I want to get into and I tell them the entertainment/music side, they give me the typical answer. “Oh” then turn away.  As if what they do is much more important than my mind could ever have the capability of understanding.

Entertainment is form of  journalism, whether you believe it or not. Now, there is types of it that are absolutely disgraceful in my mind, and I believe that these are the types that when people here “Entertainment Journalism” they automatically think of. Things like paparazzi, people working for shows like TMZ, while they may be entertainment in one of the lowest forms of the word, that’s not what I mean.

When I talk about wanting to be in the entertainment field, I have the vision of Almost Famous in my head. Small town kid, touring with one of his favourite bands, being on the road, getting a really good story.  When that movie came out, I think my jaw nearly dropped before me when I realized that you could put a love a music and writing into one career.  Ever since then, I was completely sold on the idea. Working at The Satellite under the Entertainment section, gives me the freedom to do a lot of that. Maybe I haven’t interview some of my favourite bands yet, but who knows what waits for me somewhere.

It bugs me a little when I watch students here flip over my section that I spent the week slaving over, and then chuck the paper on top of a garbage can. But that’s something that you come to deal with. Not everyone does like Entertainment.

The only thing I want is to be taken seriously as a journalist. Entertainment is my forte. I shouldn’t be considered any less of a journalist for that.