“Journalism is dead.”

Ever since the conception of the Internet, the sentiment has been building upon itself: why have print newspapers when everything is on the Web? Why bother continuing with journalism if it is just going to die off within the next ten years?

 Anyone claiming this is oh, so wrong. Journalism still is – and will continue to be – the massive, thriving beast of society, no matter what changes are hurled its way.

Granted, it is true that print journalism will someday be non-existent. It is a simple fact of life that we all must face; papers viewed on a website or on a Kindle will someday outshine those made with trees and ink. However, this is not an omen to the journalism field at large: it is just a sign that it is changing, as all major fields do.

Just because print journalism is gradually fading does not mean that journalism at large is disappearing, as well. As members of a democracy, Americans need to know what is going on around them to keep the government as well as their personal lives in check. For example: without Woodward and Bernstein, how would we have found out what happened at Watergate?

Does it matter that their articles were published in a hardcopy edition of The Washington Post? Not at all. What mattered (and still matters) is the reporting that went behind the finished copy: the countless hours they spent interviewing and researching the incident to get the facts completely and absolutely right.

It wouldn’t have mattered if the world had seen it on paper or on the Yahoo! homepage. What mattered is that people saw it, period.

At its core, that is what journalism is all about: finding and spreading the truth to everyone, and it is an important practice to uphold, because the truth is always begging to be heard. Just because people will start reading their articles through synthetic wires does not mean that the stories will be just as synthetic, that they will lose their truth.

Here at The Sidekick, we are looking toward the future. Sure, we are keeping up the print edition, but we have also started a web edition, www.coppellstudentmedia.com, to transition from one form of journalism to the next. It is not an admittance of defeat: it is an embrace of new potential and possibilities for news and journalism at large.

We are excited to be a part of the journalism world as this transition happens, to see and be a part of history in the making. Even though we journalists are fumbling our way through uncharted territory, we are still making it through the woods and creating a path for others to follow. We still strive to seek out and present the truth, as we always have, and we are still here to report as well as entertain, to voice our opinion and gauge yours.

Don’t tune us out quite yet – we’re still coming in, loud and clear. That’s a promise.