Poate că jurnalismul așa cum îl știam își trăiește ultimele momente. Poate că e tot mai greu să găsești materiale bine scrise și documentate. Poate că din jurnalism nu se câștigă prea bine. Însă, atunci când devine o pasiune, jurnalismul poate deveni un mod de viață.

Robert Krulwich este un jurnalist american care practică această meserie încă din 1974. Pe când avea 20 de ani, și-a creat o legitimație falsă de presă și a asistat la o dezbatere politică. Habar n-avea ce înseamnă o astfel de întrunire, dar simțea că trebuie să fie acolo, să învețe de la jurnaliștii profesioniști, să capete experiență.

Mai târziu, după ce a absolvit Dreptul, și-a dat seama că a făcut o greșeală, știa că nu are talent să fie avocat și a încercat să descopere la ce se pricepe cel mai bine. Îi plăcea să explice lucruri, să învețe lucruri noi și să vorbească cu oamenii. Iar răspunsul a venit singur: simțea că jurnalismul l-ar putea salva de anonimat. Și l-a salvat. Acum este unul dintre cei mai respectați jurnaliști americani, iar în 2011 a fost invitat să țină o cuvântare în fața absolvenților Facultății de Jurnalism, din cadrul Universității Berkeley.

Întreg discursul îl puteți citi aici sau îl puteți viziona mai jos. Este un discurs lung, însă sunt trei pasaje peste care n-ar trebui să treceți.

The difference

“Here’s the difference, Charles, between my generation and yours. Here’s what my friends will never do, that you and your friends DID do: we will never trust a company that hires us, no matter how good, how proud it is at this moment, to stay loyal to us. To protect us. We will never put our faith in a corporation, even a good one. We can’t. Because everything we know tells us that we will be disappointed. That we are vulnerable. And you, sitting here, are just another example of what my friends already know.”

But let me tell you what I’ve also seen…

Suppose, instead of waiting for a job offer from the New Yorker, suppose next month, you go to your living room, sit down, and just do what you love to do. If you write, you write. You write a blog. If you shoot, find a friend, someone you know and like, and the two of you write a script. You make something. No one will pay you. No one will care, No one will notice, except of course you and the people you’re doing it with. But then you publish, you put it on line, which these days is totally doable, and then… you do it again.

Now I understand that if you’re married, or have a kid, you can’t not make money. And I know that it is not fun, it’s the opposite of fun, to juggle rent payments with car payments, to fudge medical bills, to play roulette with your credit cards, to have bills that must be paid month after month after month, that don’t go down, and I know about friends and siblings who didn’t go crazy, who didn’t try to become professional storytellers, who became normal things, like sales people, and doctors and teachers and are now moving into homes, buying real furniture and making you feel like you are slipping backwards in the world for the sin of following a dream. I know about that.

But let me tell you what I’ve also seen.

Think about NOT waiting your turn

So for this age, for your time, I want you to just think about this: Think about NOT waiting your turn.

Instead, think about getting together with friends that you admire, or envy. Think about entrepeneuring. Think about NOT waiting for a company to call you up. Think about not giving your heart to a bunch of adults you don’t know. Think about horizontal loyalty. Think about turning to people you already know, who are your friends, or friends of their friends and making something that makes sense to you together, that is as beautiful or as true as you can make it.