Week 3 - Development journalism to a Grade 6 student
A mother’s love knows no bounds. You know how your mom always worries for you whenever you do not reply back to her texts? Whenever you stay up late at night just to finish your heavy homework? Whenever you’re sick, and she takes a day off from work just to nurse you? Mothers are all heroes cloaked in disguise. They are intelligent, brave, and caring. Meanwhile, development journalists, too, are just like mothers.
Mothers are intelligent. Before we started to go to school, our mothers became our first teachers. When we were young, our moms taught us basic things we need upon growing up. They taught us how to speak so we could communicate with other people, and they taught us how to eat with a spoon and fork. Also, when we were relentless with our insistent questions, they answered them with wit and grace while keeping up with our own pace of understanding. Just like mothers, development journalists are intelligent too. They provide us with information that we seek for. Also, they translate scholarly and technical information into words that would match our own level of understanding. Determined and persevering, they undergo further research and they would do whatever it takes to satisfy their thirst for knowledge just so that they could be of help for people’s own pursuit of learning.
Mothers are brave. When we are afraid, they show and put out a strong heart by facing their fears in order to give us what we need. Even when loads of work consume their time and exhaustion drags them down, they still persevere because their love is stronger. They make endless sacrifices, no matter how big or small. Just like mothers, development journalists are brave too. When conflict arises, they suit themselves up and come in action. They go into various lengths through further digging and exposing scandals that need public interference. Also, they constantly offer perspectives for us to ponder on through an in-depth analysis of the situation so that we could deepen our understanding of the conflict, and finally come out with a solution.
Mothers are caring. Through ups and downs, they are always concerned with us. When we succeed, they are always on the go to celebrate our victory. When we are down, they are ready to support and cheer us up. When we are faced with problems, they help us emerge from the surface to learn new perspectives and achieve wisdom. Just like mothers, development journalists, too, are caring. Through journalism, they commend our victories. When the public is defeated, they help us analyze and evaluate our failures. They always make sure to keep a fair eye on public issues, keeping their own principles and beliefs tucked in, and report them objectively so that public readers will be granted the choice to come up with a fair judgment themselves.
In conclusion, what a mother is to a child, is what a development journalist is to the public. Aside from being intelligent, brave, and caring, both of them have one goal, and that is to achieve the greater good of who they live for.