Participation

Jon Krakauer went on the Everest expedition as a paid observer for a magazine. This is called “participatory journalism,” and it can be quite dangerous. What do you think the job of a journalist is or should be? What challenges might a journalist face who writes about an event in which he or she is also a participant? Where do you draw the line between being an observer—outside the event—and being a participant—inside the event? How does a journalist deal with events such as disasters without becoming emotionally involved?

• The job of a journalist is to uncover the truth that the people want to know about, or the truth that they would care about. Or, journalists may also help spread the ideas and opinions of a person or a group. I believe that the jobs of the journalists is not to exaggerate and also not to spread rumors around the world, rumors that might not even be a bit true. 
• I believe that the challenges of being a participant is that he or she has to experience and record down the events and details of the experiment at the same time. And while he or she is doing this, he or she might get into another unexpected trouble.
• An observer of an event would be the one who barely uses up any energy. A participant, however, actually enters the event that he or she is reporting on. For example, an observer of a basketball game would watch as an audience, while the participant would go down and enter the game as well to better understand the feelings of the players. 
• I believe that to deal with disasters without becoming emotional, you have to be able to see through meager but important things, and also be able to quickly find a solution to your problem. One way to do this is to think in the point of view of how the world would treat this problem (or if you were an observer, what would you do?).