Dear LW,

You say that you are suffering from depression, that you have in the past, and that you are considering medication. You also say that you are thinking about quiting journalism. Perhaps it would be best to stick with the journalism until you deal with the depression.

Medication may not be enough to cure the depression. Sometimes talk therapy is needed, along with the meds. In any case, the depression distorts your view of the world and yourself. It would be a shame if quit journalism and then found out later, after the depression was cured, that you made a mistake. Your good grades seem to indicate that you are doing something right.

Copy Editor

I've been reporting full-time for seven years now, and I still feel awkward asking embarassing questions. And sometimes, but not too often, I think (as another writer here mentioned) that I'm more of a writer than a reporter. But mostly (and I hate to sound insensitive here), I just suck it up and ask the embarassing question. Just like I suck it up and approach random people on the street, or suck it up and knock on the door of the family whose son has just died in Iraq, or been arrested for murder. Like I said, it's been seven years, and it hasn't gotten any easier. It may never get easier, but it's not enough to make me find another job. No one says you have to be overly confrontational and outgoing. Just find a style that works for you and go with it. And if this fear isn't something you can overcome, I guess there's the small comfort in finding it out now, and not after getting hired for your first job.

Do you have to ask uncomfortable questions to be a journalist?

Now things may be different in Britain but although I have never been a journalist myself I have met lots and many use a technique of just chatting and then writing their impressions of the person together with research based material.

Or you can write factual articles punctuated with a few quotes, I know in doing a radio documentary show years ago the reporter and I would present my factual material (locking ourselves in the basement of a 16th century haunted mansion house once, with only a hand torch for light while Judy told the story and I filled in historical detail) and then punctuate it with vox pops. In the haunted house show we just went back when the house was open to the public and asked visitors for their impressions.

Think of different ways to approach things. The adversarial style of journalism often produces poor results from a readers point of view.

Scribbler sounds like he needs to remember a fundamental lesson of journalism: they are not your friends. Not PR people, not company officials, not the governor, not the child whose kitty was rescued from a tree. They are professional contacts and it is your job to get them to talk to you.

That does not have to happen on a confrontational basis. You can share coffee, drinks, lunch, tell them about your new baby or girlfriend, listen to stories about their lives.

But you must keep on your side, and think of them being on their side, no matter how cordial you are and how helpful they are to you. Once you can get this division straight in your head, then you can ask probing questions that you might otherwise find uncomfortable.

I completely sympathize with shyness. One of the things I hate most is person on the street interviews, because I hate bothering people who normally have no contact with reporters. I cringe every time I have to do one. It has not gotten easier after 25 years in this business. But I get through it because it is part of the job.

Good luck, Scribbler. At least you were concerned enough to get some advice.

Journalism is not all about afflicting the powerful. A lot of good journalism is, to be sure. A lot of it is also about having the discipline and internal quietude to shut the f up, open yourself to the people and place around you, and just observe.

Think about narrative feature writing as a possible career choice. (But steel yourself to the fact you will sometimes have to ask difficult questions. You can do it.)

BTW, Wells is probably an angry dude stuck on night cops who can't get along with his editors, if he's even that.

I had a similiar problem when, many years ago, when I became a child abuse investigator. You think reporters ask impertinent questions--how about asking someone if he is having sex with his daughter? I was pretty shy and had grown up in a small town in Nova Scotia before moving as a teenager to a small town in Florida and asking questions like this were just not part of my personal culture.

However, it was my job and I had to do it. The first thing I did was to create the persona of "Ann the Investigator", a self assured, confident woman who had the legal and moral right to talk to people about the intimate details of their lives. "Ann the Investigator" was not the same quivering wreck as "Ann the Person".

Then I realized that it was not my job to be "Ann the Human Lie Detector Machine". My job was to accept what I was told as what the person was telling me, using that data to figure out what further questions to ask and where to get corroborating or refuting evidence.

Then I realized that it was all right to like my clients, even if they may have done terrible things. I could like them without liking what they did and without believing they were truthful.

I also discovered that there is absolutely nothing people like as much as talking about themselves and if you are interested and make encouraging noises,it is amazing what they will tell you. Now, with so much confessional television lowering the privacy bar, most people will start talking and will not stop until they have told you everything. It bogles the mind.

You can do it. You became a journalist because you were interested in people and in their stories. Given half a chance, they will tell you everything you want to know. You are not a prying jerk--you are a confessional facilitator.