Let's see: you'll have people you interview make snide comments about the good ole "Herald Exagerator," or the "Substandard Exagerator," or "The Daily Urinal" for as long as you are in journalism - every paper is labeled thusly, no matter where you go. Then, after the story is published, everyone and their pet-dog-Barney will disparage every word you wrote - yep; everyone is, indeed, a critic. You'll probably hate your editor because, after a lifetime of being a journalist, they hate everyone but themselves. Your entire life will become a never-ending deadline and you will never have the so-called regular hours. You'll fight with the photographers because they never seem to see eye-to-eye in terms of how a story should be illustrated. And while all your friends - with other degrees - drive nice cars and live in comfortable homes, you'll be driving old jalopies and living in rundown apartments because the pay sucks and you will have to move often in order to ever get ahead/be promoted. Other than that, it's a great way of life. Good luck with that.

Online journalism, page design, layout.

There's actually a number of jobs in journalism that are perfect for detail oriented introverts. They're not the sexy jobs, but they're every bit as important as reporting.

Although if you must be a reporter there's always the more esoteric types of financial journalism. And as someone has said, technology.

...is a difficult, acquired skill. I have found it useful to see it like i'm adopting a slightly different persona; pulling on an attitude where i'm a little more aggressive, a little more assertive and al ittle more probing than I normally would be in everyday life.

I learned this from a former colleague and longtime friend, Megan O'Matz -- a pulitzer finalist this past year at the Ft. Lauderdale Sun Sentinel. When we worked together in Pittsburgh, she was the nicest, most mild mannered girl you'd ever want to meet. We have had a running joke for 15 years about how she was Mary Tyler Moore in another life.

But when she's chasing a story, all that disappears. She becomes much more assertive, much more skeptical and much more tireless in her work. If she was that kind of person all the time, I doubt our friendship would have lasted long. But i learned from Megan the value of amping up the qualities which help in reporting tough stories when I needed them. And putting them aside when I was done with the story.

I don't know if this is something you can do. But since you love the other parts of journalism so much, it's a strategy you might consider.

Eric Deggans

TV/Media Critic

St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times

(727) 893-8521

http://www.sptimes.com/columns/deggans.shtml http://blogs.tampabay.com/media/

http://www.myspace.com/ericdeggans

LW has gotten so much great input both from Cary and other journalists, I really have hardly anything to add.

But, since I feel that I can relate to the LW, I'll share my experience too:

I spent four years in college as a reporter, then editor, then editor-in-chief at our daily newspaper. I loved it and hated it. I loved it because it took me out of myself and I felt like I was contributing in a real way. I hated it because of the pressure ... and because of feeling the same way the LW does. Even after three years of churning out multiple stories per day, knowing my sources, knowing the issues, it was hard for me to make calls, hard for me to dig. I had to steel and motivate myself to do it. A lot of times I wanted to crawl under my desk, or just edit stories, and not report. I don't know why ... it was just some resistance.

Now I'm a lawyer. I have the same personal struggles, they just show up differently. So, LW, it seems to me that you may "confront your demons" and find out that they're around for the long haul -- and that they are even an asset, as Cary mentioned. I think part of my resistance to reporting was perfectionism ... I always wanted to get it right, and interviewing and fact-gathering is messy. I dreaded it. And I was messy. Sometimes I'd fail to ask those nitty-gritty questions, for no good reason other than I was uncomfortable, or whatever. Or I'd miss an angle because I was obsessing over the wrong thing. I'd have to make the inconvenient callbacks. It sucked. I never felt wholly comfortable with my role, and that self-consciousness always was present when I was doing interviews. That was just part of my process. Others around me were naturals -- I could see it. But, at the same time, I wrote some great, thorough stories. My obsessiveness and perfectionism paid off in other ways. I was a good editor.

Your shy/awkward personality doesn't mean you should or shouldn't be a journalist. It's just your own personal struggle. Make your peace with it, set your boundaries, and recognize the upside.

And, I'm showing my personal bias by saying this -- do some reporting outside J-school! Get into the thick of things in some real context. It will help you define what you like and don't like, get a sense of whether journalism is for you, and if so, how you fit in.

E.O.M.

"I never felt wholly comfortable with my role, and that self-consciousness always was present when I was doing interviews. That was just part of my process. Others around me were naturals -- I could see it."

Don't be surprised if the people you saw as naturals were themselves struggling on the inside, "acting as if," and perceived YOU as a natural. One thing I've learned over the years is that all the world truly is a stage. It's a comfort, actually.

I've been reading everyone's responses to my letter, and I have to say this is more than I'd ever expected. Thanks to you all, both those saying stick with it and those saying try another field.

One thing I'm curious about--at least one responder called me out for my self-absorbed motivations that got me into this field. I plead semi-guilty, though of course I haven't detailed all my reasons in one letter.

But that makes me wonder--you journalists who've read and responded, what motivates you? Is it something like what I describe, playing out some personal psychodrama? Or more like the responder's sense of civic duty and service to readers?

Either way, I'd love to hear about it--to know what that psychodrama is, or who you picture those readers as being. Especially since, as a few folks have noted, the field isn't exactly hospitable to its practitioners these days.

Oh, and to the folks suggesting the White House beat--I thought about it. But I'm not sure even I could be that passive.

-Shivering Scribbler