A Journalist's Playground

The laws of the law just keep coming at us like a round of bullets, and I really don't think i'll be able to spend my career missing all of them.

What I have learned so far in my freshman life of a budding journalist is this; people don't like us.

Yet they depend on us in a way I feel they'd rather not admit. We're the eyes and the ears of this society. We gossip and bitch and whisper secrets round the world. The public feed off of what we hand them, eat out of our hands, and then watch us take one for the team as the onslaught of rules and regulations hail down upon us from the wig wearing, gavel wielding hands of higher judges.

All metaphors and flowery descriptions aside, journalists technically have no more restrictions to abide by then any normal member of the public. No talking of active cases outside of court, personal information belonging to the convicted is not to be broadcast. They're just more decadent and specific versions of what your mother told you at school. Don't talk about people behind their back and don't spread rumors. The moral code of any respectable human being. Of course, moral code is allowed to be discarded in favor of a good story which is rule #2 of being a journalist. But of course, we would all earn a slapped wrist for that as well. No malice. Malice. It sound's like one of the seven deadly sins but in my case it's another one of my old playground rules. "Be nice to the other children!".

However, in the grand scheme of things, maybe the public likes a juicy story even better when it's been struggled for. Like a note hastily passed in class before the teacher sees, or Chinese Whispers. You know at the end of the day that what you're saying is wrong, but it just makes the game all that more fun. So in my new playground of judges, convicts and pushy press, here's to hoping I keep my head afloat. After all, what's life without a little risk?