Best I can do for them is to give them every piece of information I can find and let them make the judgments. That's just my basic view of my function as a journalist.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
If you're a good journalist, what you do is live a lot of things vicariously, and report them for other people who want to live vicariously.
I try very hard to maintain the confidence of my sources by speaking candidly with them, honoring agreements about the use of our conversation, and practicing journalism in an honest and straightforward way.
What happens is I speak to people outside of my circle of friends and they have already formed an opinion of me based on the things that people have written. That is the effect of journalism on my life, and sometimes it isn't very pleasant.
I've had more misrepresentations than I can handle, and people have told the wickedest lies about me. A lot of them have taken their frustrations out on me, and I don't like that because it can wound. Not necessarily me, but those around me. Journalists can be so bad.
I am a hard-news journalist. That is what I do.
With legitimate journalists I've always had a great time - I've never gone out of my way to court the press. That's probably cost me some money, but I've always had the respect of my peers.
The responsibility that I feel is to do as good a job as a journalist as I can possibly do.
Journalism makes you think fast. You have to speak to people in all walks of life. Especially local journalism.
Journalism is a flawed profession, but it has a self-correcting mechanism. The rule of journalism is: talk to everybody.
While journalists cannot right every wrong, champion every cause or fix every problem, they can - through the written word - lift someone's burden for a day, make some elderly woman on a bus smile or let them know they are noticed by someone.
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