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If I had a time machine...
Posted June 21, 2010 at 00:12 in blog
SPJ Headquarters got a letter in the mail last week from a middle schooler who said she was interested in becoming a reporter. The membership coordinator looked at the letter and handed it to me, saying I should write her back.
I had to think about it for a while. I didn’t want to freak her out…telling her about the state of the industry would certainly do that. I could just imagine her eyes going wide as she read the letter and then saying, “Er…nevermind. I’ll stick with becoming a lawyer, thanks.”
So I decided on the cheerleader approach. First, I thanked her for being passionate about it. It takes a special kind of person to start asking career-oriented questions as a preteen. (Doesn’t puberty raise enough questions at that time?) Then, there was the “keep writing, keep reading the news and take any journalism/yearbook classes you can once in high school” deal-e-o.
I think the most important part was letting her know that if she had any more questions, we’d be there for her. I wrapped the letter around an SPJ Code of Ethics and an SPJ window cling sticker, then sent it on its way. I was pretty giddy about it, and I hope she found it helpful.
This got me thinking. What would I have wanted to know before starting my career in journalism? What would well-known journalists have wanted to know before they became big shots in their craft?
I was offered two kinds of advice in college, and they were vastly different. One was the cheerleader approach, which prompted warm fuzzies and amped up my energy for journalism. The other was the terrifying “For the love of God, get out while you still can” approach, which left me stunned and feeling like I was seconds away from wetting myself.
Now I’m going to jump into the time machine of life: I wish my high school journalism experience had been more professional. We went around and interviewed our friends, having been taught nothing about conflicts of interest or journalism ethics. Our knowledge of AP Style was capped at 10 rules. Finding out in college that there was a whole book of ‘em was more than a little disconcerting.
And in college, the curriculum was always morphing into something different. Originally thinking of myself as a “print major,” I didn’t quite know where I fit in. The term “print major” is obsolete, and I wish my freshman self would have known that.
In college, I think broadcast majors now have the advantage. I wish I would have known to break down the broadcast/print barrier that had been set up in our curriculum and take some TV production classes. Thank goodness I grabbed the opportunity to work at WCJB TV20.
I wish, I wish, I wish. You’re not going to live out all your journalistic hopes and dreams while in college, and that’s why people have to kick booty in their spare time to learn all these one-man-band skills.
If I could give my high-school self a sliver of advice, I would travel back to say there’s no such thing as a print major and that I’ll always be her cheerleader. And I would leave that letter in her/my locker.
Oh! And while there’s a half-hour left…Happy Father’s Day, dad. You rock the fu manchu.
I think that girl was you from the past. The letter just got stuck in the mail for the last ten years.
This was a great read. Keep ‘em coming.
— Rudy Mendoza · Jun 21, 01:54 AM · #