Public should be award of current events

By Taylor St. Germain
Editor-in-Chief

Before last week, I assumed that the majority of United States citizens is aware what is occurring in the country on a daily basis, whether they gather their information from the latest CNN alert or through Brian Williams every evening. I came to the rash assumption that we all know who our leaders are, what decisions they are making to govern our lives, and why Congress is so incapable of making authoritative decisions.

It was an assumption that I willingly made until my Government teacher announced that he would give weekly current event quizzes. I suddenly began to scour every top paper across the country, besides La Vista of course, searching for the top headlines and congressional reports. Though I consider myself an avid news reader, I was amazed at how little I knew about our country’s political system.

But it turns out I wasn’t the only one that didn’t know as much as I originally thought. According to the Pew Research Center for People and the Press, in 2007, only 69% of Americans could name the vice president of the United States, and 44% of people did not know the governor of their state.

I had originally thought that the ignorance stemmed from a lack of initiative from the public. However, according to the same Pew Research study, only 43% of daily newspaper readers are considered knowledgeable about current events. While it does take a certain amount of effort to skim a newspaper, log onto a news website, or attentively view a newscast, it is the responsibility of news sources to provide the public with up-to-date information through any kind of medium accessible.

It saddens me, as a journalist, to see such belittling statistics about the quality of news in our country. As a leader of La Vista, it is my job to be knowledgeable about events, whether it be within our district or country, and report them unbiasedly.

At first sight of the stats, I was discouraged to see that newspapers are having such a minor effect on the public’s knowledge. But while frightening for the future of news mediums, my responsibility as a journalist only increases my drive to spread legitimate news.

I can only hope that the public is not losing sight of the importance of current events and that news sources continue to uphold their journalistic integrity in reporting truthful and timely news.