Recognizing privilege

By: Jack Norcross

It is no secret that we as students at Elon Univeristy are extremely fortunate. It is something I think about often, but rarely am able to visualize. Yesterday, provided a perfect example of this when we visited the University of Iowa. While catching up with my former journalism summer camp teacher, we were able to meet with students working for the Daily Iowan, the student news organization. 

I first want to start with the fact that the students and staff could not have been any nicer to us. There kindness and generosity were the best part of the trip. 

After talking with students I was utterly shocked to here that there is basically no communication between the television, newspaper and digital entities. While I believe any organization can improve these relations, it is important that there is a constant communication line between all three groups. 

As much criticism we receive both internally and externally about how are organization is not converged, I was surprised to see how well our organizations works together compared to the Daily Iowan. 

This trip went beyond structure for me. It also taught me how fortunate we are to have a well-funded student news organization that is constantly seeking to serve the greater Elon community. In addition, our production value, resources and professors help make Elon News Network a reliable source of news. 

In the end, while recognizing our privilege is important, it is also crucial that we realize student journalism has an essential role at all universities across the country. Our job his to tell people’s stories and to hold them accountable, which I can say both the the Daily Iowan and ENN do on a daily basis. I am proud to be a student journalist and am looking forward to taking what I’ve learned from in their newsroom back to our own.