Journalism May be Dying, but Journalists Are Very Much Alive

I grew up in a culture with an oral tradition that stretches back 9,000 years. That’s not all that long in the grand scheme of things. Humans have been telling stories for hundreds of thousands of years, if not millions. We tell stories to gossip, to comfort each other, to make hardship more bearable, to share information, and to stimulate our minds. Storytelling is an art that’s tattooed on our bones.

In the wake of yet another round of layoffs, with more journalists jobless than ever, it’s easy to conclude that journalism is a dying field—but don’t forget that “journalist” is just another word for “storyteller.”

?You might think of journalists as people who work for newspapers, magazines, networks, and stations. You might think that when those employers collapse, we collapse with them.

Think again.

We hold jobs in every sector, and we go by countless names. It doesn’t matter what title you slap on our business cards. We are what we are. We tell stories. And you need us more than we need you.

Without us, not only the entire entertainment sector, but also marketing, advertising, coaching, therapy, professional development, design, computer science, and even manufacturing, diplomacy, and international trade would all grind to a standstill.

Don’t believe it?

People don’t buy products. They buy stories about products. People don’t vote for politicians or for policies, but for stories about politicians and policies. People don’t agree to work together unless they can tell a story together, a story in which they’re both protagonists and both come out ahead. Stories are the raw materials from which we’ve built our world. Without stories, nothing can function.

Call us by whatever name you like. You’ll still need our stories, and you’ll need us to tell them.

We are journalists today, tomorrow, and all the days after. Storytelling is in our bones.