I have always wanted an M.A. In fact I’ve always wanted to hold a Ph.D., too. I am the first person in my immediate family to complete an undergraduate degree, and I always knew I never wanted to stop with just that. Earning a B.A. in journalism and pursuing a career in that field often makes others ask me why I would even continue with formal education. Among aspiring and seasoned journalists alike the assumption is that either one immediately seeks an M.A. after undergraduate school, and therefore misses out on real world experience, or one forgoes higher-level education for the purpose of immediately gaining resume-worthy experience within the field. I always wondered, “Why not have both?” The only part of my Master’s journey I could have never anticipated was that it would be in “New Media” since I did not grow up with a wealth of technology. Because we had little money – and because my dad was significantly older – I listened to music on a record player and did homework on a typewriter.
Personal and Professional Influences
There isn’t enough space to list the influential people and experiences that have led me to where I am now. Without the English teachers who inspired my odd fascination with grammar and syntax to the professors who stimulated my fondness of Emerson and Thoreau, I certainly would be on a different trajectory today. In my high school, English and literature classes had the strongest teachers of all the courses taught. And because of those proficient teachers, I was sent off to college with a lyrical foundation that inspired me to love words, to use words thoughtfully, and to tell engaging stories with them.
In my first year at Emerson College, I was introduced to Nellie Bly – the first American investigative journalist. She intrigued me because most women in the late nineteenth century were hardly ever hired to write and be published. I liked that this young woman was “not content with the usual women’s articles – stories of social gatherings and parties – [so] Bly immediately began her investigative career” with her story “Ten Days in a Madhouse” (Mills 99). In her compelling expose, Bly visits the Blackwell’s Island Asylum in order to uncover the conditions women suffered there. For me the words, phrases, and literary style made her story completely palpable. Immediately I knew this was the kind of journalism I wanted to do. Having grown up abroad in Latin and South America, I witnessed much political turmoil. This unrest led me to believe that there must be dozens, hundreds or even thousands of people whose stories have yet been told. Reflecting up these memories, I thought that one day I could be a Nellie Bly of Latin American political strife, but only after I had obtained adequate the tangible – monetary – and the intangible – knowledge – to do so. Although a dangerous objective, so too was Nellie Bly’s.
Additional – and more modern – influences in my journalistic journey have been my professors from The George Washington University. They introduced me to a world of production to which I was immediately hooked. With long hours and much patience, they taught me how to make my stories materialize in a way that was palatable to a mass audience. They also taught me the basis for my New Media interests – operating content management systems, building Web sites from scratch, using programs like Dreamweaver and Flash, and editing with Final Cut Pro. Additionally I honed an instinct for non-linear storytelling, which I feel, is key to journalism’s future within the context of New Media tools. I was first subjected to non-linear storytelling when a professor at GW showed us an online interactive map which detailed the events of Hurricane Katrina. Instead of being made to learn the details in a chronological order, the user could click on different areas-of-interest on the map to experience the story in the order he/she desired. Another example this professor showed our class was a site about 9/11 victims' families. The site looked like a grid, and in each "box" was a person's picture. The user could click on any picture in any order to learn about the person's story. I couldn't believe I had never thought of this earlier in my journalistic career. Instead of forcing a reader/audience/user to access a narrative in a particular way, I could -- as a non-linear storyteller -- allow them to have options.
Being part of the Facebook generation has also affected my desire to pursue an M.A. in New Media Studies. In the future– when we are further removed from the beginnings of the iPod-Facebook-Twitter era – academics will critically discern what effects the whirlwind of media and technology changes meant and continue to mean to our society. With this Master’s degree, I anticipate being one of those academics participating in that discourse. While the process of that debate has already begun, I believe as years pass the analytical lens will be clearer, more diverse and perhaps more provocative. Earning a New Media Studies M.A. will certainly augment my capabilities for significantly impacting that exploration.
Anticipated Contributions to My Field
Pondering the future as to what contributions I will make to media and/or journalism is mind-boggling. At this point it’s hard to imagine that I could have any significant impact in the media field. With role models – whom I aspire to be like – including Nellie Bly, Lynn Barber, Walter Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow, Roger Mudd and Peter Jennings – it’s hard to think I could compare or even come remotely close to the contributions they’ve made. Some of their niches (i.e. Cronkite, Mudd, Jennings) have become obsolete now and therefore unlikely and unnecessary to be filled. Instead, my goal contribution for the moment will be to heighten women’s presence in the realm of media production. Having worked in the past as the sole female on many shoots and editing processes, I feel as though my presence of “making it” as a producer will surely pave the path for prospective female producers. As of now it seems to be “a man’s world” in which men operate cameras, manage operating boards, produce award-winning shows, and rise in the production ranks more quickly than women. Perhaps that disparity will diminish as more women, like myself, make way for other women to feel comfortable in such occupations.
My ultimate career contribution, though, is to undertake my “Nellie Bly” style story regarding Latin American political unrest. To this day many are clueless about “La Guerra Sucia” in Argentina in the 1980s or even the whole dynamic between Panama and the United States up through the late 1990s. These are the types of stories I wish to generate eventually – most likely ten years or so from now when I’ve been in the media business a significant time and have established adequate resources to do these stories justice. I believe that I am the right medium through which these stories should be told. And perhaps with the wealth of technology at my fingertips today, I might have he ability to report them in a non-linear, new media style way.
In a decade or more from now I imagine I might also be an adjunct professor. Part of the lure of earning my Master’s now was so I could teach later and be part of an academic ritual – passing on to others the nuggets of knowledge that were taught to me which had been passed down to my teachers and their teachers. Teaching, to me, is the ultimate contribution since knowledge is the ultimate and most fundamental intangible. And because I value it so, I have continued my higher-level educational journey and will continue to do so throughout my life.
WORKS CITED:
Mills Eleanor and Kira Cochrane. Journalistas: 100 Years of the Best Rwiting and Reporting by
Women Journalists. Perseus Books Group; Berkeley, CA; 2005.
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