Journalism can be a rough scene for the idealist.

Of course, in theory it’s perfect (though admittedly, to the idealist many things are). It’s an institution dedicated to the pursuit and dissemination of truth. Each new article can reveal injustice, unmask empty promises and call attention to things that need to be changed. Being a journalist is a way to make the world a better place, even if your "world" is a high school or college campus.

The problem with an uncompromising commitment to the truth, however, is that the truth can be unpleasant. With each new article, the journalist sees more plainly the prevalence of injustice, duplicity and unconcern. You can say that you’re better off after losing respect for a person or organization, having realized that they aren’t who you thought they were, because your perception is now that much more accurate. But it doesn’t make it any less painful.

The comfort that the personal hardship is all worth it because the newspaper is fulfilling its duties to its readership starts to feel cold when your readers don’t seem to care, let alone care enough to take action. Sometimes, you wonder if they can even be called "readers" at all.

"I put 400 copies here yesterday and look at the size of the pile now," I said as I left Walsh one Friday evening. "A lot of people must be reading The Ram."

"It’s raining," said Victor, the guard at the security desk. "They’re using them as umbrellas."

Just as disheartening, or perhaps even more so, is the revelation that not all journalists have the same priorities. Many college editors aren’t in it because they want to make the world a better place; instead, they want to advance their own agendas or make their resumes stronger. And when the returns aren’t profitable enough, the newspaper is reduced to its origins, an "extracurricular activity," and abandoned. Sometimes, when I remember how much I love being a student and how little time I’ve had for it these last few semesters, I think I should have made that same reduction myself.

What of the world of professional journalism, wherein one no longer has to juggle interviews and editing with classes and papers? There, the issues are rarely free and the need to make a profit turns the pursuit sensational, cut-throat and manipulative.

Columbus Day weekend, I went home to visit my parents in Cleveland, where the daily newspaper is The Plain Dealer. We used to have another, the Cleveland Free Times, akin in spirit to New York’s Village Voice. At the beginning of October, however, the Free Times folded – not because it lacked finances or readership. It turns out that the owner of its lesser-known competitor, Cleveland Scene, also owned a paper in Los Angeles; it competed with another newspaper owned by the same folks as the Free Times. Well, I guess that the owner of the Free Times wanted more circulation in LA, and the owner of Scene wanted more circulation in Cleveland, ’cause they made a deal; each closed one of its newspapers to give the other a monopoly on that city’s market by eliminating the competition. The Free Times, a vibrant, relevant, successful publication, was a casualty of the trade. How un-journalistic can you get?

As the state of the profession looks worse and worse, all the deception, corruption, cowardliness and uncaring cannot but take their toll, until it starts to seem that perhaps the idealist is prolonging a groundless battle, supporting an imaginary cause. There is a strong temptation to leave the world of journalism to those who are less pained by its shortcomings.

But then who will battle those shortcomings? Who will uphold the journalistic ideal, if not the idealist? One cannot only believe in the best that people and things have to offer; one must also fight for it, one article at a time.

Journalism can be a rough scene for the idealist, but where else does an idealist most belong?