By Aakash Jain ’14
THE ROUNDUP
Co editor in chief
I am so grateful to have been a part of The Roundup for the last three years.
I have especially valued the amazing friendships and strong sense of community that have developed over those years.
Moreover, working as a student journalist has undoubtedly improved my writing skills and ability to conduct interviews and edit articles.
However, what I have valued most is the opportunity to share meaningful stories—often your stories—with our community.
Though I have enjoyed all of my assignments for The Roundup, from covering the school basketball team to writing movie reviews, I have especially loved writing human interest stories, articles that attempt to communicate the subtleties of the human experience through the written word: the in-depth piece about the tough childhood of a senior preparing for college, the light-hearted feature story about a faculty member’s love of cinnamon gum, the article about the impact of a former English teacher.
This last story was an article I wrote last semester about the death of the Rev. Anton J. Renna, S.J., a longtime English teacher.
For the article, I interviewed Mr. Tom Danforth ’78, Mr. Lane McShane ’82 and Mr. John Damaso ’97, three current English teachers who were inspired by Fr. Renna’s teaching as students during three different decades.
My conversations with them revealed that Fr. Renna incalculably influenced Brophy by inspiring multiple generations of students and teachers.
When my article about Fr. Renna was published in The Roundup, I felt a tremendous sense of pride, not because of the quality of the writing or because my name was printed below the headline, but because I felt that what I had done was important.
I was honored to be able to share his story with the community.
Some experiences are so poignant that they literally take your breath away, as my conversations with Mr. Danforth, Mr. Damaso and Mr. McShane did to me.
I cherish these moments and ultimately, that is why I have loved journalism as a high school student and hope to continue in college.
So thank you to each member of the Brophy community who has ever allowed me to share their story or even picked up a copy of The Roundup and glanced through the pages.
Going even beyond my experiences with The Roundup, it is because of all of you that my time at Brophy has been so meaningful.
You have immeasurably enriched the last the four years of my life, and I will miss Brophy more than I can imagine because of it.
Journalism, media possess awesome power
By P. Erik Meyer ’14
THE ROUNDUP
Co editor in chief
The media is more powerful than the government.
The news industry possesses some of the most powerful people in society and you might not even realize it.
Think about it for a minute: The media tells you what you need to know and they can do so in their own tone and at their own time.
This column is not intended to be some conspiracy-stirring piece; rather it is to make you aware.
Aware that we live in a world today that has more information available at a speed that is faster than ever.
We as a generation must demand transparency and ethical reporting.
Having been involved in varied capacities on The Roundup staff over the past three years, I have come to learn the value of ethical reporting and the impact reporters have on society.
Why do you think taking over the media is one of the first thing dictators do when overthrowing a government?
It is because the media has to power to control the people and shift their viewpoints.
Far too often, people listen to their local news at night and simply agree and believe everything that was just said to them was a fact.
It is time that people discern the news and become able to tell for themselves what is true, honest journalism and what is biased.
There are far too many CNN and FOX Newses in our world today that tell you what to think instead of presenting you with the facts and allowing you to think for yourself.
Let’s face it, objective news is much more boring.
It does not often stir up emotions, it does not create intense arguments and worst of all it makes you actually do work to formulate your own opinion.
Now you are probably asking well, how in the world am I supposed to find objective news if all these news sources contain bias?
The answer is relatively easy, but highly unpopular.
I’m asking, rather calling you out, to work to recognize biased news when you hear it.
Dig through and block out the bias that permeates today’s media.
Listen to more than one news source before you take a position on a topic.
Honestly, why do some of you listen and watch CNN while others watch FOX?
It is because you agree with what they say and that makes life easier on you, it’s more comfortable.
By listening and watching other news sources, you become a more knowledgeable consumer of news.
It will be a challenge, but it is time that we as a society reject what is easy and force ourselves to find the truth in our media.
