You probably just checked your Facebook. Maybe you started your day with it, before you shifted over to a news website to see what’s really going on. But right now, you’re itching to reach over and check your Instagram. Pinterest is the best procrastination tool…after StumbleUpon and YouTube. LinkedIn is, like, eh, but you’re using it anyway in hopes of getting a job someday soon. Wait – when was the last time you checked Twitter?
With all of these crazy, new-fangled social media tools, there’s no doubt that we’re constantly distracted. Honestly, when was the last time you actually sat down to do school work without allowing yourself to just sneak a few quick peeks at Facebook? While it’s true that new media has been one huge distraction to our generation, it’s also true that it has revolutionized the way we share and receive news and information. Years ago, the only reliable “news sources” were the TV and the actual newspaper that got delivered to your door every morning. Today, news is at our disposal everywhere we turn – and whether we like it or not, we consume it faster and more frequently than we consume Domino’s at 2:30AM on Saturday nights.
We’ve seen this phenomenon for years now, and Emory itself has managed to get plugged-in to all of the networks that matter. We, as a community, produce a lot of news. Especially recently.
So much unrest has bubbled up since the publishing of President Wagner’s now infamous column in Emory Magazine. People took to Twitter to and Facebook to comment on the President’s citation of the three-fifths compromise as a positive example of two sides coming to an agreement over an issue. Before long, the story became a major one that reached millions of people, thanks to our faster-than-ever ability to spread news.
As a news source itself, we at Her Campus Emory would like to acknowledge the President’s headline-making slip-up in the context of the media whirlwind to which it led. Emory Magazine is a source of news, too, and President Wagner’s article was, arguably, intended to incite more positive reactions than the ones it ended up receiving. It doesn’t seem to be Her Campus Emory’s responsibility to report the story as it happened (The New York Times did that, thankyouverymuch). Rather, our role is to acknowledge how it happened, and what it caused.
Facts aside (because, let’s be real, everyone knows them by now), there’s a certain amount of responsibility that comes along with writing news, sharing opinions, doling out criticism and passing it all on. In the case of President Wagner’s offensive comment, the media frenzy it ignited took off and became an entity all its own. It’s important to remember that as Emory students, we have a right to engage in actions like these and certainly a right to speak our minds – but we also have a responsibility to engage in a way that’s mature, informed and constructive. President Wagner, too, had the responsibility to share his thoughts with the Emory community. Unfortunately, his careless words turned what might have been an inspiring magazine column into a thoughtless piece of bad “journalism.”
As the story spreads and develops even further, all Emory students – not just the ones invested in the recently ousted Journalism program…ironic, right? – should be involved, engaged and interested in conversations about it. But still, that doesn’t mean that we, as President Wagner did, should get suckered into producing offensive “news” that parlays more into the realm of gossip. That’s what LearnLink listservs are for, anyway — oh, wait, they’re getting rid of that, too. Emory’s student-run media and news sources like Her Campus have an important role on campus, and operate in a way that makes reporting and social media beneficial as opposed to destructive and offensive. It’s up to us, the student body, to use the information that these sources give us in ways that will serve the community and add to Emory’s overall vibrancy.
So as Twitter feeds bulk up with 140-character one-liners about the column and Facebook posts reference that front-page New York Times article, consider the intentions behind your own responses to them and remember the obligation you have as a consumer and sharer of Emory-related news. Essentially, use your media resources wisely. They’re easy to abuse, especially from the depths of the library, but all news – good, bad and ugly – deserves to be produced, shared and consumed in a responsible manner. So go forth and read, Tweet, post, like, stumble, comment, buzz, pin and Instagram responsibly, even if making responsible decisions in your free time isn’t normally your thing.
Okay, you can go back to Facebook now.