Journalism (1940)
The video discusses in detail the jobs available in the field of journalism. It ranged from jobs like the "outside man" (collected news) to the "rewrite man" (actually wrote the news) to specialists and experts in designated areas such as sports and business, respectively. There was a lot of pride and dedication taken in each job.
The video begins with a sentence, "The alphabet has only 26 letters. With these 26 magic symbols...." This very line itself identified the importance of journalism back then. People relied on magazines and newspaper, print culture, to get information. It was "magical" how information could be shared through the press. Unlike the press where it was termed "an exciting task," covering news today seems to be more for competition than it is to actually get good news out. Of course, I'm not saying there's just bullshit, for lack of a better word, out there, but being factual and precise isn't always the number one priority. The same feeling of rush and timeliness still exists, but valuing the source doesn't appear to be a priority.
Today, I feel a lot of people skim over the fact that there is actual work being done to get information and new content out. As the video puts it, there's tons of people out there running around for facts. They live on the road to accomplish their job. I think by watching this video, people will see how much work and effort is done behind the scenes. Perhaps watching or reading the news isn't the most exciting thing that can occur in life, but it's what keeps us connected with the rest of the millions of us that exists.
I agree with what you are saying. Watching this video opens your eyes to the amount of work that goes into news. These days news is easy to get, but reliable news can be hard to find. I don't believe that reporters back then were necessarily any less rushed to get the story, though. Those reporters were under strict deadlines and felt constant pressure to, as the video says, get the story. Now a days there are just more news fighting for the readers attention causing the news to be more sensationalized. It is known that newspapers back then would lie or make up stories to grab readers attention just are news outlets do now.
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