Kiana Norman-Slack

I watched this Korean drama once called Witch's Romance. In the show, the main character is a journalist at a magazine company called 'Trouble Maker', and the basis of the magazine is to bring scandals of different celebrities to light with the intent to hurt them. While it was just a TV show (that was super funny, by the way), it really provoked me to think deeply about what it actually means to be a journalist.

In the show, the water cooler conversation was alway about how the main character was a witch --meaning she had the drive to report the truth, but had no compassion for anyone the truth affected. I think that touches on an important thing in journalism, which is keeping in mind who is affected. Minimizing harm is a key point in the SPJ Code of Ethics. It states that "ethical journalists treat sources, subjects, colleagues and members of the public as human beings deserving of respect." I believe my role as a journalist is doing just that. No matter what the situation is, I will treat it with as much respect and care as I possibly can.

I also believe that opening up conversations that are not easy to talk about is important. I really enjoy writing opinion pieces, and the key to writing a good opinion piece is sharing just enough information to open up a conversation. In this day and age we are being told what to believe. We are being force fed the ideas of others without really taking the time to pick apart the ideas and create our own.

I want to create that question mark in your head.

Overall my job as a journalist is to provoke you to think.