Up until about a year ago, I'd always wanted to be a journalist. It's all I can remember wanting to be... that and a princess when I was in playschool. But then after taking Journalism alongside my degree in first year, I learnt a few ugly truths about the industry that completely blackened it for me. Things I was so naive to before about the way journalists acquire their stories, the lack of freedom in their writing and the lack of morality in their work.
I've recently found myself at the forefront of such matters. I'm not going to go into details, but it involved a tweet of mine being taken and twisted by the press. Yes, the press were interested in one of my rambling, sad little tweets. I was as shocked as you probably are. When I found out about it, alongside the repercussions of it, I felt sick. The thought of some random person trawling through my tweets to find something conspicuous is the strangest feeling. And to totally twist it and add made up lies to it to make it even worse... well it was certainly a peculiar feeling, one I'd rather not feel again.
You see things like this happen everyday of course with prominent figures. And you don't even think twice about it. But you can guarantee the authors of those tweets didn't expect them to go much further than their "twitter audience"... unless of course that was their original intention. You tweet and make Facebook posts for your friends and family. It's supposed to be private... but you forget anything you write on the internet can be seen by absolutely anyone, and it's theirs for the taking. Even this blog can be read by anyone around the world. We're slowly losing our grip on privacy, and with that losing some of our human rights.
The media can be a disgusting business. The phone hacking saga is a perfect example of that, which whilst it didn't shock me, was a disgraceful and frightening violation of human rights. The media has eyes and ears everywhere... anything we say or do can be captured somehow, noted down for their twisted gain. They'll stop at nothing to get what they want, with no regard for who or what they may destroy in the process. I hold on to the hope that there are still some genuine journalists out there... actually, some genuine people out there. We're all guilty of putting ourselves before others at some point for our own progression... okay, sometimes it may be needed, but there is a limit. And those limits are becoming weaker and weaker... soon there's going to be no limits left.
They say pushing these boundaries is necessary as it allows them to deliver "what the public wants". Can they really say that is what we want? To have innocent peoples human rights ripped to shreds just to deliver a good article, to make a snappy headline? But as long as they have the power to do this, then of course they will, and we will all be their victims.
"Power is tearing human minds apart and putting them back together in new shapes of your own choosing"
