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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I was just reading an essay about journalism in which the writer pointed out that more outgoing people willing to ask prying questions are good as reporters and the more thoughtful writers are better as copy editors. I was glad to see the other poster who suggested that.
If only copy editors were stil used! most periodicals have severly cut down on copy editors (and it sure shows!) so I don't know the job outlook.
I do think journalists SHOULD ask difficult questions and not accept pat answers, but ask for clarification.
I graduated from a top J-school in June.
It was a whirlwind year with a lot of stress and not much time for self-reflection in between the panic, worries and deadline pressure.
Now a few months into my first "real" journalism job, I've started to think about things.
It's a tough industry, especially right now. Newspapers are fighting tooth and nail to stay afloat. Good reporters hardly get paid enough to live in "big market" cities, let alone pay back any school loans.
The hours are sometimes crappy. The work is often unglamorous. (Think school board meetings, person-on-the-street interviews and constantly running up against stereotypes about the big, bad MEDIA)
The people we deal with aren't always nice.
YOU DON'T HAVE TO LOVE THE PROCESS. Nobody does.
Some journalists are aces at interviews but stare at the keyboard in a panic when it's time to write. Some are more "writerly" and love crafting the perfect sentence, yet loathe getting on the phone. Some are expert researchers and pride themselves in having the esoteric knowledge, but clam up when it comes time to ask the tough questions.
Some, like me, know that this is one a few paths that satisfies my curiosity and gets me fired up for an unusual and diverse career path.
I would encourage you to think about what your mission is for your career. For me, I knew I could NOT do a job that was the same each day. I knew I had to be around smart, motivated, energetic people. I knew I had to be challenged and learn something new everyday. I knew I liked finding connections with perfect strangers and having license to ask (sometimes embarrassing) questions. I knew that I had to do "something" with the burning curiosity that kept me up reading all night, asking questions and wanting to leave an indelible mark (in ink) on the world.
Find your drive. Go to happy hours with the other J-School students and ask them what brought them there. Find a mentor who inspires you and who can help you see past the stress of today's story and keep you focused on the long term goal: Doing something that makes you happy.
What is striking about the LW's original complaint is how shaky his reasons for going into reporting are. Aside from one throwaway line about how on a "good" day, he enjoys learning about new things, many of his motivations seem rooted in pure, self-centered ego: "I feel ... a little powerful" and "I'm nauseated by the thought that my work will appear under my name," for example.
And instead of going into reporting because he's got a passion for a specific topic (as many science, technology, arts and business reporters I know did), or because he's got the bug to tell people stories (as nearly all good reporters I know do), or because he genuinely believes that a free press is vital to our lives ... it's because he wants to "experience what it means to be human." This is a profoundly selfish reason to enter a field that has the potential to affect other people; perhaps his realization of this explains why he is chary of assuming any "exposure and responsibility."
Journalism is about conveying the story to others. If you're a good reporter, you're a conduit for the story. The stories you report can affect you, yes, but at the end of the day, you're dedicated to a purpose above and beyond your own self-actualization. You're driven by curiosity, the belief that transmitting true and accurate information serves a vital need in society, and a love of story-telling. The story should always be bigger than you are.
Done right, reporting DOES carry "exposure and responsibility" -- reporting on a new piece of technology can make or break a product line or company; reporting on a new scientific development can make or break someone's reputation or the public's perception of a field; reporting on a company can affect the livelihoods of countless people. There is no good reporting that's done in a consequence-free bubble. So long as you do your job right -- be scrupulously fair about including all the facts, put those facts into the fullest context possible, do your legwork, get good sources and figure out how they're trying to work you -- that's not your problem.
Being shy shouldn't even factor into it. I'm shy. I'm also a decent reporter -- because I know the story's never about me, it's about my topic and it's for my readers. And I love what I do. I love learning something new, I love passing on that tremendous thrill of discovery to readers, and I love directing attention toward previously-unexplored facets of the world we live in. Those kicks always propel me past any awkwardness -- and they can do it for anyone else who's in the field for the joy of seeing how the world works. Not how they work -- how the world works.
I wonder if wanting to run and hide, or sink into a cosmic tar pit, might be an indication that LW is dealing with some anxiety separate from the issue at hand. LW, although this may sound petty and irrelevant, you may want to cut down on caffeine. It can make a tremendous difference.
Shivering -
As a journalist who has been on and off antidepressant medications for many years (and who has now accepted I'll be on them for the rest of my life), I can tell you two important things:
1. Your depression is probably affecting the way you perceive the questions you have to ask as part of your job (and the way you perceive others' perceptions of them). Treat the depression first. The real reason for this? If you switch careers now, you might choose the wrong one for your medicated/treated self, who will be different in terms of skin thickness, adaptability, and versatility.
2. I share your concern that people will be upset at your questions. Most people who feel this way are in one of two situations:
a. a public or official capacity, in which they signed up (or sought election or nomination or whatever), knowing they would answer to the public, or represent the public face of an institution. These people may not like the questions, but they were the ones who signed up to have to answer them. If they don't like the questions, either quit (great story then!) or don't do the deeds that result in the questions.
b. a private person whose life has somehow unexpectedly or unintentionally been thrust into the public spotlight (a current example would be the Kim family in California and Oregon). Asking these people questions is in some ways more difficult, but in other ways easier - you can empathize with them, and they want to talk, whether you believe that or not.
There is a very practical reason that newsroom jobs tend to all start as the obits clerk or obits writer - once you can ask someone you've never met about the life she shared with her husband of 55 years on the day he died, you can ask just about anyone just about anything. The real shocker, as any obit writer will tell you, is that people want to talk. We mourn as much spiritually and emotionally as intellectually and logically. What do people miss about their dead loved ones? Not just the unspoken love, or the hugs, or the smiles, but the wit, the insight, the pranks - the brains under the skin. We mourn verbally - we talk about our grief. And the newspaper is a way to bring the community into the grief.
I've written tons of obits, features on the prominent local man who died, etc., and the feedback has been invariably positive - even from the ones who hung up on me at first.
You may be a private person - I am very much so. So your discomfort may come in part from your expectation of how you would feel being asked these questions. But if you have had a family member or close friend die, think how you felt when friends of that person, folks you'd never met, reached out and asked how you were doing. It felt good, right? You didn't mind them asking, because they were gentle and supportive about it.
Just because you expect you would feel a certain way doesn't mean you're right about others - or even yourself.
So start every obit interview with, "I'm very sorry for your loss." Mean it - you do, after all (even if your sorrow is more that their loss means you have to make the call). Say, "I'm working on a story for the newspaper about your loved one, and I hope you can spare a couple of minutes at this difficult time to speak with me." Be genuine, be sorrowful and respectful. If the person on the other end of the phone breaks down, ask if there is someone else there who might be better to speak to.
On the other side of the spectrum, if it's a public official, remember that you and your readers employ the person, you (and your readers' tax dollars) bought their desk, their office phone, their filing cabinet, the paper in it (and the printer it was printed on, and the toner it was printed with). If they don't want you poking around, they shouldn't have agreed to do the job. They work for you, not the other way around. Be nice about it, but make sure they know that. Your boss doesn't hesitate to ask you hard questions - why should you hesitate for people who work for you?
And in all cases, remind them that you're just doing your job. You have to ask certain questions, and you're sure they understand.
Best of luck.
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