Well...
Well.. I notice livejournal is pretty much used for bitching so I might as well join in...
SO. I got a journalism internship and I'm into my third month. It was all good and fun and cool and I really liked it, and then today, or just recently it sort of started sucking.
I'm noticing a certain "rule set." There are questions I can't ask even when I really need to know. Such as "What is the number of the detective, again?"
That question literally was met with a scream I haven't heard from anyone since I finished suffering through my horrible, horrible childhood.
Just today I was assigned to write a baseball story. "I don't know much about baseball," I said.
What happened? The editor came over and whispered to me that I should NEVER say that I don't know something. NEVER. Why? Well... don't ask. Can't ask. A nice man--the photographer--told me later that in this business you get to know people and things so no one is really an expert. He also told me he cringed when he heard me ask the editor.
God dammit. I thought in the journalism world the barb-wire pitfalls would be fucking up a story or missing a deadline--instead it's all these social rules and hiding the fact if I don't know something and if I need help.
I didn't think the work world would be like this.
Possibly it's becuase I am in Massachusetts now, where people happen to be much meaner and angrier or perhaps it's just this newspaper or perhaps, just perhaps it is what newsrooms are.
I decided today--still flinching from the scolding--that I don't want to work in any business where I need to worry about saying something dumb or asking a question. Maybe journalism is just that type of business. Maybe that is what journalism is. If that's what it is: I don't want to be a journalist.
Then again emotions fade. Maybe I'll find a good newsroom, maybe I'll learn to cope.
But goddamn...
SO. I got a journalism internship and I'm into my third month. It was all good and fun and cool and I really liked it, and then today, or just recently it sort of started sucking.
I'm noticing a certain "rule set." There are questions I can't ask even when I really need to know. Such as "What is the number of the detective, again?"
That question literally was met with a scream I haven't heard from anyone since I finished suffering through my horrible, horrible childhood.
Just today I was assigned to write a baseball story. "I don't know much about baseball," I said.
What happened? The editor came over and whispered to me that I should NEVER say that I don't know something. NEVER. Why? Well... don't ask. Can't ask. A nice man--the photographer--told me later that in this business you get to know people and things so no one is really an expert. He also told me he cringed when he heard me ask the editor.
God dammit. I thought in the journalism world the barb-wire pitfalls would be fucking up a story or missing a deadline--instead it's all these social rules and hiding the fact if I don't know something and if I need help.
I didn't think the work world would be like this.
Possibly it's becuase I am in Massachusetts now, where people happen to be much meaner and angrier or perhaps it's just this newspaper or perhaps, just perhaps it is what newsrooms are.
I decided today--still flinching from the scolding--that I don't want to work in any business where I need to worry about saying something dumb or asking a question. Maybe journalism is just that type of business. Maybe that is what journalism is. If that's what it is: I don't want to be a journalist.
Then again emotions fade. Maybe I'll find a good newsroom, maybe I'll learn to cope.
But goddamn...