Sarah de Beer – HNC Professional Writing Skills
I am an autistic woman (got diagnosed in 2022) that is aiming on becoming a Political Journalist as my future career. This is largely due to one of my main special interests being The Hunger Games and my hyperfocus in researching parallels with Panem and modern-day society as Suzanne Collins got inspiration for the series when she was flicking through channels on her TV; one day she flicked in between the news of the Iraq War and the reality show Survivor that is popular in USA. I find her political commentary in the books to be inspiring from a creative writing standpoint as her worldbuilding skills in creating Panem is fascinating; especially when you can see the parallels, she is attempting to create between Panem and the real world. It’s this series that has made me to look at the politics of our own society and see the injustice in the world – As a Journalist I want to report the truth of the world to the best of my ability.
It is believed that autistic people have the common trait of a strong sense of justice and most live by an uncompromising moral set of rules. Like for example, a research test was made of allistic people and autistic people on if they would be swayed by a bribe – it’s unsurprising that autistic people weren’t swayed by the bribe but allistic people were. Some people would find this unflinching desire to be empathic and honest to be a weakness – and in some contexts it can be especially if you can’t read the unspoken social rules of society that wants people to ignore something wrong if it means keeping the peace and avoiding conflict. I would like for a society to be more honest and for people to not be punished for it. That’s one of my many hopes in my future career in Journalism, as an industry that has an unfortunate history of either omitting the truth or being swayed by bribes – especially in political contexts. There’s many journalists that are truthful in their reporting and they’re my biggest inspiration in life as they aren’t swayed by corruption like a lot of mainstream media; they speak the truth like I hope to in my future career.