Bottom line is that many media outlets are more opinions than factual reporting of news, particularly in politics, where facts largely do not matter when forming and influencing political opinions.
This is correct - and that’s commentating - whether fox, cnn, msnbc, local or whomever.
But there are still true journalists out there as well - but as we saw in the Fox/Dominion case, they now have to watch out for the company’s image or risk their career. A true journalist follows the facts, reports objectively and verifies sources.
Today - journalism is at a minimum unfortunately.
A college student who wants to do that may want to major in the area of their journalistic focus, but also take courses in other areas that they may encounter (e.g. economics, business, science, etc.). Better background knowledge can help avoid unwittingly writing someone’s press release or uncritically repeating something that is blatantly false to someone who has any background knowledge of the topic.
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Hmm some of my friends interested in PolySci/International Affairs have done the following
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Debate Club or Mock Trial, really helps you be a more articulate person
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Shadowing a lawyer (one of my friends interned with their state senator!) or collaborating with some political sociology research through cold-emailing
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Political Blog or any other online presence
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Because you want to incorporate journalism into the major, I think being vocal about your opinions would also help – Activism, Volunteer Work, Nonprofits
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I think continuing with MUN is also great – have you heard of NAIMUN? It’s a national Model UN tournament and it just ended on Sunday; maybe get involved with those
Thank you for posting! - Politics and Government is such a noble path for college 
Absolutely - and most, if not all, journalism programs will require at least a minor and often a major. It’s a degree with a very high failure rate - myself included.
You need a very broad background and intellectual curiosity to do this. Majoring in international relations is fine. So is history or political science or philosophy. If you favor a region, it’s helpful to major in the history or politics of that region, such as middle eastern studies, Arabic studies, East Asian, Latin American. You get the idea. You will also need a language and a lot of international experience. Study abroad a year and become fluent in the language.
Writing is just one piece of being a journalist. Just as or even more important: expertise in getting and organizing information, resourcefulness, extreme curiosity, and facility in explaining complex ideas and boiling things down to the essential information. Most important: having an excellent news sense. What is news? What makes a good story?
Being involved in college journalism is an awesome experience. It’s very immersive and you are actually doing the profession you’re interested in. You grow up very quickly because you take on a lot of responsibility. The people on the campus paper become very, very close.
College papers that are famously pipelines to professional journalism are The Michigan Daily (UMich), Yale Daily News, Cornell Daily Sun, The Daily Tar Heel, (UNC) Daily Orange (Syracuse), Columbia Spectator, Daily Cardinal (Wisconsin), Tufts Daily, Daily Pennsylvanian (UPenn), Daily Northwestern. Many others are excellent student newspapers as well.
If you google top daily college papers you’ll see lots of lists. Take them with a grain of salt, but you’ll see the ones that are mentioned widely. Start reading them.
If you choose a college based on it’s newspaper, these are the essential characteristics to look for:
- Daily newspaper.
- 100% student run.
- 100% independent of the university (not overseen by or funded by university and not part of a class).
- Robust and transparent systems for training new staff and for choosing editors.
- Has a dedicated physical space.
Also consider how competitive or difficult it is to get on the staff of the newspaper.
Typically the student newspapers take everyone. They seek out new members all the time. Nobody is turned away. If you work hard and you’re good, the sky’s the limit. There’s probably more jockeying for positions and oneupmanship at the schools with undergraduate journalism programs.
Supposedly, getting onto the Daily Bruin at UCLA is competitive, according to this post:
As large as the Daily Bruin staff is, UCLA is a very large school, so it is likely that there are far more interested students than it needs.
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I have a journalism degree from what was a top school back in the day and am not currently practicing in my field, but I still have a vested interest in how the news is covered.
Some of the best reporting I’ve read is via Substack these days. All news channels are beholden to advertisers; that impacts the slant of stories, what is and isn’t focused on, sources, etc.
Many journalism students go through student newspapers if they don’t make it into specific j-schools. There’s enough going on in a student’s community that they can report on; finding an outlet that you can contribute to (like a community paper, some still exist!) is another way to gain experience.
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My D22 is the one above, who did make it on to the Daily Bruin staff.
She arrived at UCLA with a decent amount of journalism experience from her high school paper. She was a copy editor, a news editor and a senior staff writer. She also got involved in some local political activities, and served as a youth commissioner for our county. She went to meetings, organized volunteer efforts and presented to the Board of Supervisors to gain approval for their projects. This taught her a little about how governments work.
I know you have big dreams to write about international issues—but remember that politics is local, first and foremost. Get involved in your own community and see how decisions are made and why things happen the way they do. See who affected by decisions your community is making.Your curiosity and involvement will certainly be relevant come application time, but more importantly, if you are going to be a good reporter, you need to learn the way politics works from the ground up.
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The Daily Pennsylvanian (“the DP”) is open to everyone and they actively recruit new members during new student orientation. They are 100% independent and student run. They don’t shy away from tough topics or hesitate to criticize university leadership if they disagree with them. I have been very impressed with the level of reporting. There is a saying on campus: The devil works fast, but the DP works faster.
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Penn is a smaller school than UCLA, so the campus newspaper being non competitive makes sense. But getting into Penn to begin with is likely more competitive.
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Lol, I have to agree with that sentiment. D22 was rejected when she ED’d at Penn last year 
But she is happy it all worked out the way it did!
While an ivy name looks good on a resume, in the journalism industry they don’t matter as much as having experience and knowledge, which you can get from a journalism major and/or a school paper. Later in your HS career if you decide journalism is really for you, look at schools with a journalism program for undergrads. While yes, a school paper will give you experience, it won’t give you the knowledge of journalism ethics and law that a major or minor would, or the advice that journalism professors, who have decades of industry knowledge, can give. Northwestern is a T20 school with a superb journalism program, for example. USC, UNC, UF, UT Austin, American (shamless plug), and BU are all good schools with good programs.
For school papers, look at if they are editorially independent. This means that they cannot be influenced in their writing by the school administration. Some schools are both editorially and financially independent, but editorially is the important one. Also look at their “about us” and ethics pages, if they have them. Are they older? Do they have print editions or are they only online? How many freshmen/sophomores are in leadership positions? What’s the applications process like? Good papers will be competitive, with students vying for positions on them.
For academic programs, look to see if they require journalism ethics and law classes. Better if they’re two separate classes, but requiring it in the first place is a good indicator. Also make sure they require some sort of digital or multimedia journalism class, the industry as a whole is moving to digital, and they want people who know the technology. Don’t be afraid to pick apart their degree requirements. The more time you spend in your major, the more job-qualifying work you’re producing. You don’t get internships without a portfolio, and the larger your portfolio, the larger the chance is that you’ll have something they’re looking for. Also look to see what internships students place in. Most schools have some sort of website where you can see common internships their students did in each major. Or look at their students’ Linkedin profiles to see what they’ve done. A good school will produce journalists who don’t have to be on the school newspaper to get a job, though it’s obviously a plus when they are.
You have time though, so don’t worry about it too much. Look into your HS paper and figure out what you want to do first, worry about admissions later.