home > Jackblog > intern

Get Yours

“I get it once a week.” That is the JFP marketing slogan. It’s true; some people do pick up a copy of the paper every Wednesday. However, I’m disappointed by how few of those people are my peers.

The majority of high schoolers don’t seem to know it exists.

My friends ask me what I’ve been doing this summer and I reply that I’ve been interning at the Jackson Free Press. There are three standard reactions to this answer: 1) “OMG cool!” 2) “What is that?” 3) “Bo-ring.” Only around 2% (yes, I calculated that, using experimental data) fall into the first category. Even then, they use the texting abbreviation “OMG.” It’s as if local news is for old people. It’s not cool to like Jackson, or even to wonder what’s going on in your hometown.

At school, we have people running off to volunteer in Africa, but nobody cares about the issues we face right here in our city. Starving babies aren’t exclusive to Ghana, ya know?

At the moment, I’m a bit disillusioned with my age group, but I understand. Before this summer, I’d only occasionally picked up a copy of the JFP and read maybe a few articles. Community interest stories just aren’t extremely interesting, next to Student Council, detentions and Homecoming.

I feel that as we mature, though, we start to look outside ourselves and the walls of our school. We start to care about things that may not directly affect us. I know that my eyes are opening. I hope that a number of my peers will join me in learning about the way things are.

This week, I’ve started really respecting how much work goes into an issue. I’ve been having nightmares about Jackpedia listings. I have also come to realize that the people who get things done at this paper are motivated by their ability to enlighten and inform.

Curiosity is a basic human emotion. We just have to let ourselves be curious.

The answers, the information is in the paper. The paper is free. Why not read it?

 
posted by sadaaf.mamoon on 08/11/11 at 03:59 PM. [printer version]    Share |

COMMENTS

You are not logged in. To post a comment, you must be a registered user and logged in. Click here to register or click here to log in.

Log in to JFP using Facebook

:: recentcomments

May 24, 2012 | 07:14 PM
Bryant Signs Voter ID Bill
notmuch: Oh, I have hundreds of those right-wing sites, and I couldn't say which ones are more "partisan"--they all include those pesky facts. Yes, when dead voters and multiple voters under ...
May 24, 2012 | 07:11 PM
Bryant Signs Voter ID Bill
justjess: @ golden eagle. Thanks for the spell check. I didn't just spell assassination wrong ONE time, I did it over and over. LOL! You are right on the mark; I was trying to use the word ...
May 24, 2012 | 06:46 PM
Bryant Signs Voter ID Bill
golden eagle: I don't think you could've found a more partisan right-wing site than the Daily Caller. The fact of the matter is that the right is using this issue not as a means of improving ...
May 24, 2012 | 06:10 PM
[Dish] Cobby Williams, Young Gun
trusip: WOW! was this a real interview or a joke?
May 24, 2012 | 05:00 PM
Bryant Signs Voter ID Bill
notmuch: I don't think you could have found a more liberal example of a "non-partisan" site, but even so, their evidence seems to consist of 250 carefully chosen instances in one area of ...
May 24, 2012 | 04:48 PM
Bryant Signs Voter ID Bill
golden eagle: Rather than using ideological websites to support your argument, I'll use the non-partisan Brennan Center for Justice. Really good site.
May 24, 2012 | 04:30 PM
Bryant Signs Voter ID Bill
notmuch: I might be missing something here, but I am a little confused by Golden Eagle's points: "the fact is that voter fraud is extremely rare"--so it is of no consequence that some ...
May 24, 2012 | 11:26 AM
Nick Hanauer's 'Controversial' TED Talk -- Tax the Rich?
RobbieR: TED is an elite academic conference.
May 24, 2012 | 10:18 AM
Bryant Signs Voter ID Bill
DonnaLadd: No, Darryl, no one blocked you. Stop being paranoid. We just typically open comments in moderation during non-office hours. To me, a bozo isn't someone who disagrees with me. It's ...
May 24, 2012 | 06:18 AM
Bryant Signs Voter ID Bill
Darryl: That's funny that you blocked my last comment...
May 24, 2012 | 05:31 AM
Nick Hanauer's 'Controversial' TED Talk -- Tax the Rich?
Renaldo Bryant: So true. This is why critical and analytical thinking are so important to citizens in a democracy. The rich have the power to shape perception ...
May 23, 2012 | 05:24 PM
Bryant Signs Voter ID Bill
Darryl: justjess, you stated "Racism and discriminatory practices continue." What objective data do you have to support this? Calling someone unqualified is a subjective interpretation of ...
May 23, 2012 | 01:37 PM
Bryant Signs Voter ID Bill
golden eagle: Wow, my English was bad on the previous post. You know how it is on these iPhones.
May 23, 2012 | 12:30 PM
Bryant Signs Voter ID Bill
golden eagle: @Jess, I think the word you're looking for is "assassination". @Darryl, do we really know that the majority of MS'ians wanted this, when you consider that this was a ...
May 23, 2012 | 12:18 PM
Bryant Signs Voter ID Bill
DonnaLadd: I can only hope that the reason that this bill passed is that, for once, our lawmakers listened to the majority of Mississippians and crafted this bill. Considering that the ...

100 recent comments »

 


click to view "flip" version of this week's print issue

 

Guests online: 228
Logged-in members: 0
Anonymous members: 0
Elapsed time: 0.7227
The most number of visitors ever was 1961 at once on 03/27/2012

 

© Jackson Free Press, Inc. - portions of code by CC with EE. User agreement and privacy statement.
phone: 601-362-6121 (ext 11 sales, ext 16 editorial, ext 17 publisher)
fax: 601-510-9019 * P.O. Box 5067 * Jackson, MS * 39296