The Learning Channel

The television station, TLC, has been known for its odd collection of shows, but I feel like recently they have really stepped it up a notch. I grew up knowing that they had shows like, "A Baby Story," and "Trading Spaces." Now they have shows like, "Virgin Diaries" and "Extreme Cougars," that are extremely ridiculous and are not family oriented in the least.  The station went from having innocent, family shows, to shows that are explicit and show people with extreme habits. "Virgin Diaries" was about couples who never had sex until marriage, and "Extreme Cougars" was about women who were going after men younger than more than half their age. I think it is ridiculous that this is where our television is going. Yes, I find these shows interesting, but it also kind of scares me into where the future of reality television is headed. Innocence is not attractive or interesting anymore and that scares me. It seems like unless something is extreme and/or disturbing, the audience will not be great enough for the show to have success. There always needs to be a scandal or something dangerous to draw in the viewers and high ratings. I can't wait to see where reality shows are headed because I think the next generation will be growing up in a much uncensored and more disturbing world than we grew up in and I think that is unfortunate.

Reflections

This semester definitely flew by! I can't believe our last week of classes is about to start and we will be beginning our last semester here at Witt. This was my last course in the Journalism program and I can honestly say I truly enjoyed it. I don't know if I grew much throughout this course, but I think I have definitely  grown a great deal from my first class, Beginning Journalism with Mac my sophomore year, to this course. I came in to Macs beginner class thinking I knew everything since I wrote for my paper in high school and I was not open-minded to learning new things. But I quickly realized that I had a lot to learn and in order to improve as a journalist I need to accept change and have an open mind. The major change I can see in myself is my confidence in interviewing strangers. I have become more comfortable meeting new people and asking them questions. I have also gotten fairly decent at writing a story in my head during the interview. During the interview I can sense what is important and what is not and what would make a good quote and what does not. Overall, the whole journalism process has become much easier for me and I have learned to enjoy it and perhaps use these skills in my future career.