Journalism Q&A
Steph has a roommate who's studying journalism. She asked if she could ask me a few questions for a report.
1. What makes you want to become a journalist?
I used to be a real junkie for current events, particularly politics. I listened to the news every day on the radio and watched the Newshour on PBS every evening (it offered much more in-depth discussion of the news than the traditional network outlets or CNN). I got in the habit of reading the newspaper every morning. I just loved to know what was going on in the world, and talking with folks about those goings-on was a great way to stimulate my brain by stimulating my thinking. It helped me sharpen my thinking and helped me make informed decisions.
So, when I got involved with the campus radio station during my first semester as a freshman, I decided I wanted to get involved with the news department. During the second semester, I also got involved with the campus newspaper. I served as News Director of the radio station for a year, managing editor of the newspaper for a year, and co-editor-in-chief of the paper for two years. I also got a part-time job at a local radio station doing news in the morning on the weekends. It all just kept snowballing from there. The more journalism I did, the more cool experiences I had and the more cool opportunities opened up for me, and so I would do more, and so on and so on. It was a great rush!
2. What good/bad experiences did you go through as a journalist? e.g.) any challenges you had to face
The worst part of it, really, was just the bad hours and crappy pay. The news never stops, after all, so when there's a fatal fire at 3:00 a.m., I'd have to roll out of bed and go cover it. That gets old pretty quick, let me tell you! It was tough with a baby at home, too, because it presented some childcare challenges. (I blame any of Steph's idiosyncrasies on that!)
I did have a couple particularly tough situations to deal with, though. One story I had to cover involved a recently divorced father who killed his two sons and then himself because he was despondent over the divorce. I saw those bodies, covered in blood-stained sheets, and it haunted me for a long time. Another story involved a man who'd been accidentally killed by a snowplow during a major winter storm. He was supposedly someone without a family, so the state police released the man's personal information to me, which I then used on the air when I broke the story. A few minutes later, the man's long-lost sister called me to ask for more details and contact information for the police. I had done everything "right" by journalistic and ethical standards, yet I still felt bad that I had told this woman, along with tens of thousands of other listeners, that her brother had been killed. That one stayed with me for a long time, too.
3. What are your strongest beliefs?
Understand that you have a responsibility to your audience and to the story and the people IN your story--and most of all, to yourself. You have a responsibility to the truth as you understand it.
Democracy does not function unless the electorate is well informed and can make intelligent decisions when it's time to vote. The media plays a crucial role in making that possible, and the importance of the media's role in that cannot be understated. The media's job is to be sure voters have access to information so that those voters can educate themselves. Too often, the media prefers to entertain or titillate, which is an abdication of the media's responsibility.
4. What are your values, standards, and goals in journalism?
Make sure you get the facts accurate. Tell the truth (although, as I just implied, "truth" can be subjective and slippery).
It's okay to have an opinion (the notion of "objective" journalism is a 20th Century phenomenon driven by profit, so objectivity is not the Holy Grail some people believe it to be; I actually find the idea kind of quaint). But if you practice journalism from the perspective of advocacy, you have an obligation to be fair and thorough about it. You can't present one set of facts or one side of the story to the intentional exclusion of other information. That's called "propaganda," and it's wrong to pass that off as "news."
Maintain your credibility, no matter what. Even if people don't like you, they should still respect you. Otherwise, if you're not credible, no one will listen to anything you say--and that makes you irrelevant. That, in turn, makes it impossible to do your job.
5. Any advice/tricks you would like to share; how to become a better journalist ?
Ask a lot of questions. Be curious. (I don't think students these days are nearly curious enough.)
Do lots of research before you ever do an interview; that will let you ask better questions and it will reinforce your own credibility.
Look for the story no one else is telling. It's easy to follow the pack; it's hard to blaze your own trail. However, those are the stories that are most worth reading.
1. What makes you want to become a journalist?
I used to be a real junkie for current events, particularly politics. I listened to the news every day on the radio and watched the Newshour on PBS every evening (it offered much more in-depth discussion of the news than the traditional network outlets or CNN). I got in the habit of reading the newspaper every morning. I just loved to know what was going on in the world, and talking with folks about those goings-on was a great way to stimulate my brain by stimulating my thinking. It helped me sharpen my thinking and helped me make informed decisions.
So, when I got involved with the campus radio station during my first semester as a freshman, I decided I wanted to get involved with the news department. During the second semester, I also got involved with the campus newspaper. I served as News Director of the radio station for a year, managing editor of the newspaper for a year, and co-editor-in-chief of the paper for two years. I also got a part-time job at a local radio station doing news in the morning on the weekends. It all just kept snowballing from there. The more journalism I did, the more cool experiences I had and the more cool opportunities opened up for me, and so I would do more, and so on and so on. It was a great rush!
2. What good/bad experiences did you go through as a journalist? e.g.) any challenges you had to face
The worst part of it, really, was just the bad hours and crappy pay. The news never stops, after all, so when there's a fatal fire at 3:00 a.m., I'd have to roll out of bed and go cover it. That gets old pretty quick, let me tell you! It was tough with a baby at home, too, because it presented some childcare challenges. (I blame any of Steph's idiosyncrasies on that!)
I did have a couple particularly tough situations to deal with, though. One story I had to cover involved a recently divorced father who killed his two sons and then himself because he was despondent over the divorce. I saw those bodies, covered in blood-stained sheets, and it haunted me for a long time. Another story involved a man who'd been accidentally killed by a snowplow during a major winter storm. He was supposedly someone without a family, so the state police released the man's personal information to me, which I then used on the air when I broke the story. A few minutes later, the man's long-lost sister called me to ask for more details and contact information for the police. I had done everything "right" by journalistic and ethical standards, yet I still felt bad that I had told this woman, along with tens of thousands of other listeners, that her brother had been killed. That one stayed with me for a long time, too.
3. What are your strongest beliefs?
Understand that you have a responsibility to your audience and to the story and the people IN your story--and most of all, to yourself. You have a responsibility to the truth as you understand it.
Democracy does not function unless the electorate is well informed and can make intelligent decisions when it's time to vote. The media plays a crucial role in making that possible, and the importance of the media's role in that cannot be understated. The media's job is to be sure voters have access to information so that those voters can educate themselves. Too often, the media prefers to entertain or titillate, which is an abdication of the media's responsibility.
4. What are your values, standards, and goals in journalism?
Make sure you get the facts accurate. Tell the truth (although, as I just implied, "truth" can be subjective and slippery).
It's okay to have an opinion (the notion of "objective" journalism is a 20th Century phenomenon driven by profit, so objectivity is not the Holy Grail some people believe it to be; I actually find the idea kind of quaint). But if you practice journalism from the perspective of advocacy, you have an obligation to be fair and thorough about it. You can't present one set of facts or one side of the story to the intentional exclusion of other information. That's called "propaganda," and it's wrong to pass that off as "news."
Maintain your credibility, no matter what. Even if people don't like you, they should still respect you. Otherwise, if you're not credible, no one will listen to anything you say--and that makes you irrelevant. That, in turn, makes it impossible to do your job.
5. Any advice/tricks you would like to share; how to become a better journalist ?
Ask a lot of questions. Be curious. (I don't think students these days are nearly curious enough.)
Do lots of research before you ever do an interview; that will let you ask better questions and it will reinforce your own credibility.
Look for the story no one else is telling. It's easy to follow the pack; it's hard to blaze your own trail. However, those are the stories that are most worth reading.