There was a common theme in class Wednesday about the mind of a journalist. Hearing from Gareth Harding was very interesting because he was so real and honest with what he talked about. He talked about the benefits that come from taking risks and being independent and curious. Journalists need to have a particular mindset about them that help them get good work. One thing that I took in particular from his lecture was the importance of building your own brand. You need to have your own views as a journalist because you need to be able to think for yourself and plan out what you want to do. Connections are also very important, which reminded me that in everything I do I need to be eager to meet all kinds of people because you never know who can help you and in what ways in the future.

I looked Harding up and found his website, thought it was kind of cool: http://garethharding.com/

This tied in well with the theme of the student presentation. It was interesting to see everyones viewpoints on different topics or situations that were presented. It proved that journalists all have their different opinions, but they still need to be as unbiased as possible. You can choose who you work for based on what their viewpoints are and if you agree with them.

One of my favorite things that was brought up in the presentation was about what kinds of different audiences people write for and how they make changes on what they say based on what the audience knows. When I was in Jerusalem a big portion of our New Testament class focused on what groups each author of the gospels wrote for and how they altered their messages based on what the audience already knew, didn't know, cared about, or didn't care about. I was glad that was brought up in class, because it shows that the same stories or events can have skewed meanings or ways of being told based on the audience. No two people will write the same exact story. The mind of the individual journalist certainly adds and/or takes away from a piece of work.