Wrong major

An individual who majored in journalism – a profession that idolizes facts and truth – has a chance to become one of the most powerful people in the world and arguably the most powerful woman in the world. Sarah Palin, who graduated with the mentioned degree from the University of Idaho in 1987 (college took her almost five years and also five colleges), is currently the talk of journalists and America as a whole. She might be the next vice president of the United States, and one reason this chance isn’t minimal is because John “the Maverick” McCain, the person at the top of the ticket, might be the only Republican in the United States that can pull off a victory despite the state of America because of his nickname and his reputation.

By the way, McCain is 72 and has had cancer, so there is even a greater chance that Palin can be president.

Palin was largely unknown and then suddenly transformed herself into ubiquity. (Well, there is this from back in the day.) We journalists (at the very least, student journalists who want to make a difference in the world) should be dancing from mountain tops, singing toward rainbows, and darting through glass ceilings. Some probably have those feelings.

I don’t.

I’m troubled by the fact that Palin majored in journalism at all. Whenever I write a story to be published or have a responsibility that can possibly affect others, I try to make sure that what I make part of our cosmic wash has truth and can be verified. I’m scared to death about getting a fact incorrect or saying something correct that can be misinterpreted.

Palin doesn’t hold herself to those standards. If I didn’t hold myself to those standards, then there’d be a couple of college or high school athletes’ moms angry for a day or two that her kid’s golf or basketball statistic was just a little off in the paper. If Palin becomes even more powerful than she is or the leader of the free world, there’s a chance that women would be on their way to having practically no reproductive rights – or that a misguided war can continue to be rationalized as “a task that is from God.”

“Our national leaders are sending (U.S. troops) out on a task that is from God,” Palin said, according to The Associated Press. “That’s what we have to make sure we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that plan is God’s plan.”

If the war in Iraq is actually a plan from the god she refers to, then we might be in a lot more trouble than we realize. Instead of praying that there exists a plan from God, how about coming up with a solution? Or praying for a solution?

In the world of journalism, using pragmatism is crucial. Belief is one thing and belief is great, but evidence is a whole different matter. In today’s world, reason and justification are of the utmost importance. How else can there be any accountability? If a journalist wrote something as fact that is unsubstantiated, he or she can be short a lot money and out of a job. We journalists as a whole try to do what is right and honest, using very strict methods and guidelines.

Palin has shown again and again that truth does not matter. And that truth hurts because, even though she is a journalist no more, she might be my vice president and then possibly my president. Take what she said as part of her speech at the Republican National Convention. And for those who might not know, before Palin was governor, she was the mayor of a small town in Alaska.

“I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities,” Palin said in comparing her service to America to Barack Obama’s past service.

Aside from the fact that the statement was rude, mean, belittling, and bad for hardworking community organizers across America … it was wrong. Does a community organizer not have actual responsibilities? There is no responsibility in coordinating people to do the best they can to lift up communities from an abyss and to change the course of life for some?

The Bloomberg piece by Peter Robinson makes it very clear that Palin has a strong relationship with the Lord. But it might be more important to have empathy for young girls who get raped and impregnated in the most unfortunate circumstances. Palin not only stands against abortion on principle (which isn’t a unique view); she stands against choice, in any stage, even in cases of rape and incest. Having that view seems to me incredibly irresponsible. I would not want to be a 13-year-old girl who made a mistake and who lives in poverty with a single parent, as the father of the child I will be forced to have has fled forever.

Getting back to facts, or even in this case, well researched and thought out theories, Palin has another troubling view. She wants creationism to be taught in public schools. Teaching something as bogus, possibly religious, and astoundingly unlikely as creationism to students who go to public high schools shows a lack of mental clarity regarding what impressionable young individuals should “learn.” If one believes in creationism because of religious reasons, then that is great; what is not great is teaching as possibly fact something that is almost an impossibility, especially given another theory (evolution) that has much more evidence.

Sarah Palin might have the degree many of us are seeking, and she indeed has made a name for herself and has become nationally prominent in a way that most of us will not even come close to. Sometimes, surprises happen. At the end of the Bloomberg article, Palin’s biographer noted that when entering politics after caring so much about sports and sports journalism, Palin’s family went, “Oh, really?”

Well, and this is difficult to repeat, Sarah Palin majored in journalism.

Oh, really?