Since I was little and every day my grandpa sat in his recliner or at the dinner table with the daily newspaper spread out, I have been interested in journalism.

Sure, then, I looked over his shoulder or at the comics until I was old enough to read Peanuts and Blondie. Then the kiddie pages.

When I was 10, I helped my brother on his paper route until I took it over at 12. On Sunday mornings my mom would go with me to deliver at 6 a.m., and then we’d go back home and read the paper together over coffee for her and warm tea for me.

I liked how a person could learn about so many different things, near and far, day after day. And so I read. I was so intrigued by journalism, finding it to be such an honorable profession. After all, it was specifically addressed in Freedom of the Press, given rights no other field has.

I joined Kankakee High School’s Keynote newspaper, and my local paper’s teen council. When I chose journalism, a few people scoffed, saying I had the potential for careers where I could earn so much more.

But what could be better than having my name on thousands of people’s breakfast tables, helping them live safer, happier or at least more informed?

So I began my quest toward the Tribune tower, or a local newspaper, but I like to think big. It’s been a learning experience so far, here at The Daily Eastern News and professionally at The Star Newspapers of Tinley Park and the south Chicago suburbs and The Kankakee Daily Journal. I’ve made mistakes along the way, but none came from laziness or lack of compassion.

Compassion is what I think this field needs – something we’re forgetting about as trusted figures like Dan Rather inform the nation before checking facts; journalists like Stephen Glass, Jayson Blair and several others plagiarize and top editors give up their positions after allowing repeated ethical offenses to slide.

As journalists, the world is counting on us. We can’t publicize fabricated material because we’re going to beat other media to it or because we want to get noticed and move up the corporate ladder.

We can’t spend years researching a story and when we come across something that seems to explain it, put it on national television before making sure it’s authentic.

It is our job to serve as another check and balance of the government. But we cannot, within months of a presidential election, broadcast misleading information about candidates.

In this democracy, people are dependent on us, as journalists, to give them the information they need to make one of the most important decisions of their lives – selecting their nation’s leader.

As journalists, it’s our responsibility and should be our PASSION to do our jobs and do them well. And it is time to make some changes in the field, to re-introduce why we’re working there in the first place – the people of our country and the world around us.

We need their trust, and they need to be able to trust us. Oscar Wilde said, “In America – the president reigns for four years and journalism – forever and ever.”

I’m excited to have that opportunity ahead of me – excited that I can use my passion for a greater good – and certain of a good future for journalism; for it lies in my eager, compassionate hands.