Assignment #1

“Why is today significant?” This is the first prompt my digital media instructor has asked us reporting students to seize with creativity and zest.

To be fair, I’m cheating a little. Today is indeed very significant in the history of the United States—it is Martin Luther King Day, the day that Wall Street, government offices and public schools close to honor a man who was the bastion of the Civil Rights movement, and who today is an icon for the poor in spirit, opportunity and health.

Yet while I believe it is always advisable to reflect on days such as this on a national and even global level, I could not help my natural, self-concerned instinct to apply this day to my own personal battles.

From this side of winter break, graduation seems to be looming ever-nearer. I suddenly feel as though time has been swept from under my feet, and I am left dumbstruck on my bottom, wondering what lies ahead and with no idea of how to get up and get going again. My decisions regarding my career path tend to follow a pattern of deep, introspective examination, a conclusive decision, action, and then doubt that I made the right choice at all.

I recently started interning at the Greeley Tribune, a small Northern Colorado newspaper. One week in, I have already wandered down that path of doubt—twice. I have squirmed uncomfortably at the thought that perhaps reporting is not at all for me. Maybe I should pursue a career that more directly helps my community.

To the Greeley Tribune, today was significant because the turnout at the annual MLK march was three times what it has ever been in Greeley history—a great front page story. To me, today was significant because that march represented a different kind of movement, one that I am sure other students in college can certainly understand.

Another intern and I were sent out today to cover the MLK march. We were given instructions to keep an eye out for a school board member who has been causing some commotion in the city due to a few controversial radio broadcasts about the personal flaws of Martin Luther King Jr. Our editor and a few reporters predicted that there might be more people marching than usual to demonstrate their disagreement with the hateful words previously broadcast about MLK.

They were right. Parents, school kids, college students, grandparents and veterans took time from their day off to show their support for the dignity of a man who died 43 years ago.

All of this, I thought to myself, because one city newspaper took notice of one person’s opinion and turned it into wildly public discourse. All of this began because people in Greeley picked up the paper from their porches or opened an internet browser, and were so moved by the words they read that they turned them into action.

The power of the press. This march, more than anything, showed me what a direct influence reporting has on a community. I can say now that maybe I do have an idea of where I want to go after this May.

At the presentation at the end of the march, a video was played which set one of MLK’s speeches six months before he was assassinated to a power point. His words at that time were meant for a group of students at Barratt Junior High School in Philadelphia in October 1967.

He said, each person, beginning with her education, has a life blueprint. “When you discover what you will be in your life, set out to do it as if God Almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it,” Martin Luther King Jr. said.

He said that if your calling should be to sweep streets, then you should sweep the streets with the same artistry that Michelangelo painted pictures and with the same dedication that Beethoven wrote symphonies.

“If you can’t be a pine at the top of the hill, be a shrub in the valley,” he said. “Be the best little shrub on the side of the hill. Be a bush if you can’t be a tree. If you can’t be a highway, just be a trail. For it isn’t by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are.”