I’ll never be a journalist.

I’m an aspiring physicist, but I’ve had the privilege this semester to serve as an editor at The Diamondback, in the newsroom above the South Campus Dining Hall, with its garish fluorescent lighting (so bad it would even make Jessica Alba look like a gargoyle) and among the egos of the editorial staff (so big they sometimes even behave like gargoyles).

In principle, this job is simple – come to work every day and write down the truth; in practice, little could be further from easy.

I never understood what it took to publish a daily newspaper. Before I started as a columnist, I, like most readers, would pick up the paper to keep me company during lunch, scan its headlines and check out the comics. (Though unlike most readers, I’ve never done the crossword, and I’ve only tried Sudoku once. I was surprised by the ease with which I completed it – that is, until I looked at its bottom right corner and read “Degree of difficulty: EASY.”)

Now I’ve seen the inner workings of a newspaper, in all their glory and shame. I’ve seen the amazing editing process through which each article undergoes revision involving seven different people who check for grammar, factual accuracy, libelous statements and sonorous prose.

I’ve seen the fights and tears over what gets printed and what does not – fights that don’t seem to go away in this business: The Washington Post lost longtime White House correspondent Peter Baker this week to The New York Times Magazine after the Post fired his wife, Susan Glasser, last month from her post as assistant managing editor for national news.

I’ve seen my eyesight worsen from staring at a computer screen for hours on end and my grades drop in school. My roommates even thought I moved out because I’m never home. Sounds like a decent introduction to the field.

And the field is an odd one – compared to physics, at least (well, maybe physics is the odd one, but both teach that true objectivity is impossible). Physics uncovers the fundamental rules of nature through calculation and experiment while journalism uncovers the rules of human nature in tiny, digestible bits by talking to people and writing about what they’re up to.

It is a disposable existence – these kids ink their souls on broadsheets daily, only to have their work discarded the moment today becomes yesterday.

But it is a necessary existence – necessary to keep people and government in check by hoisting their actions into the court of public opinion. While the judgment of the public may not be as discerning as the judgment in front of the pearly gates, media are vital for holding people accountable in the here-and-now until they meet their fate in the hereafter.

As easy as it is to fault journalists for mistakes, misquotes and misguided reporting, we must remember this is only a rough draft – history’s rough draft – and the free press tries to ensure the plot of history is a fair one. Take a look at the disparity in the protection of human rights and dignity between places where media is forbidden and where it flourishes.

To do such a job takes a people willing to go to the far corners of our round Earth for the mere sake of telling the rest of us about it.

To do such a job well takes an uncanny amount of cognitive dissonance; I’ve never met a people who so thoroughly love and hate what they do.

I’ll never be a journalist, but I have an immense respect for those who will be.

Benjamin Johnson is a senior physics major and is The Diamondback’s outgoing Opinion Editor. He can be reached at katsuo@umd.edu.