The other day I got an idea for a blog entry. I was going to write about the death of the wristwatch. I mean, I haven’t seen one in ages. And what do you need one for anymore? We have cell phones and laptops and a whole host of other electronic devices that include time pieces, after all. I haven’t worn one in years.
But something made me ask my Facebook friends, and the response I got was surprising. A whole lot of them still wear them. The reasons were varied. Some did so as a fashion statement or a status symbol. Others did it out of habit; they would feel naked without them. Another mentioned that nurses still needed them for the second hands when taking a pulse. Still another said it was just too big a hassle to dig out your cell phone every time you want to know what time it is.
So much for my blog entry about the death of the wristwatch. I was kind of disappointed, to be frank. I already had it all plotted out in my mind.
But that made me think about journalists. People often grumble that they are biased, especially when the report is something that the complainer desperately wants to disagree with. But to be honest I really am impressed that they aren’t much more biased, given my firsthand experience, humble and limited though it may be. The urge to write the story that you want to tell is almost overwhelming. And doing research is a pain in the neck. I was going to actually sit at the mall or something and see how many wristwatches I actually saw, but then I thought, “Oh to heck with it. Life’s too short.” The constant temptation to be lazy and jump to conclusions and pull the information out of one’s own behind must be hard to resist.
So here’s my own personal high five to all the journalists out there. Keep up the good work. Because work it is, indeed.
(Image credit minnesota.publicradio.org)
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