Truth: Career, the wool over my eyes and public relations
I joined the Army as a 46Q – Public Affairs Specialist/Print Journalist. All I saw the day I signed that contract was “print journalist.” Not my dream career, but I wanted to be a writer and this was something I’d always had in the back of my head as a backup career. But, you see, military journalism isn’t “journalism” as much as the Defense Information School attempt to teach you otherwise.
Military journalists are PR hacks in journalist’s clothing. In training, they spend a great deal of time teaching you the techniques and ethics of journalism and instill within the impressionable a sense that, while you’re not going to do any great investigative reporting, you’ll still “TELL THE STORY!!!” Reality sets in at your first duty station. YOU DON’T WRITE FOR 1st AMENDMENT PUBLICATION – duhn, duhn, duhn.
This realization turns a lot of good journalists into premature cynics (all journalists are bound for cynicism, but this process should be a natural process). I think the military would do well to train their folks as public relations specialists from the get-go.
