Journalistic waste

By: Gabe Gilson

College students these days have too much time on their hands. I know, anybody reading this probably thinks it was written by a crazy guy who was bored at the time but it is true.

In preparations for writing this blog entry, I sat down at the computer and looked at the Des Moines Register for inspiration. After flipping through the fifth section, the Iowa Life, I found a section at the top for an article online about popular pet names. Oh buddy! Time to waste some more time!

I see the advertisements for dogs and click on something entitled English Bulldogs for $500. Being a lover of these ugly mutts, I had to check this out. Immediately after reading through this I realize, wow, I have a blog to write. I better go somewhere else to look for blogging inspiration.

So after exiting out of the tabs that had facebook, my Simpson e-mail, McDonalds Monopoly and espn.com, I looked back to the Register’s homepage. I clicked around there for awhile reading about Phillip Bates quitting the Cyclones, and some stuff about the local elections. I decided that nothing here was worth putting inside blog that had to be journalism related.

Of course, the place where news happens is the New York Times. I had to go look at their website. I read a little about McCain attacking Obama then saw an advertisement for my credit score. With me being the curious cat that I am, I had to spend twenty-five minutes looking that up only to learn absolutely nothing at all.

With all the wasted time that I spent doing absolutely nothing, I have learned something: This is only going to get worse if I was to become journalist. Journalists are always doing research with their stories and if I was to be in this field, I would really have to buckle down more when that time came.