I adore the media. I would not have spent the last four years of my life as a media student, and I sure as heck would not be planning to spend four more years studying it in college next year, if I wasn’t absolutely in love with this career. However, I’m disappointed in what the media is choosing to cover right now.

I’m upset because I’ve been taught honest journalism. It has been drilled in my head to leave my opinion out of reporting and only report the facts. I’ve learned the value of proximity, immediacy, timeliness, prominence, currency, conflict and, most importantly, impact.

Journalism is supposed to make a difference in people’s lives. It’s supposed to inform our audience about the happenings the their area. As a journalist, I’ve taken a vow to give the world the most current news. I’ve promised to notify my audience when they’re in danger, to challenge their thinking, to learn new things about the people they see every day and to tell them when rules have changed so they don’t get in any trouble. I’ve agreed to spend my entire life learning. I learn about new sports, new entertainment, new laws, new illnesses and new people constantly.

To me, journalism is honest and informative. It’s something that should be trusted and that should care about everything.

As a person, I’m dumbfounded that all we seem to care about is what celebrities are up to. I’m disgusted that we don’t see any news value in anything besides Kylie Jenner accidentally going platinum blonde or the fact that Google is making fun of Apple for getting rid of the headphone jack in the iPhone 7.

Worst of all, I’m devastated that we have such chronic tunnel vision that we haven’t opened our eyes and realized that there are horribly sad things, as well as unbelievably wonderful things, happening around us. It’s pathetic that we make the media think that we’re only interested in such materialistic things, so that’s all they report because they know it’ll be read.

As a journalist, I’m confused about why we’re covering Kim Kardashian being robbed of $10 million worth of jewelry that only represents a fraction of her assets when there are people getting robbed of everything they have every day. There are children starving in our alleyways and we’re more concerned with creepy clowns roaming the streets. Countries are being imperialized against their will and we can’t stop counting how many times our presidential and vice presidential candidates interrupt each other in their debates.

Our world is falling apart but we’re so focused on the material things that aren’t going to matter in two days that we can’t look up from the trending tags on our phone to see the turmoil right under our noses. We don’t care enough to use our power to make people notice what’s going on and make them want to change the world.

It’s our job as reporters to force our audience to think and learn and absorb important information, so why aren’t we fulfilling our purpose?