Journalism- more than meets the eye

Chosing to major in Journalism was easy for me. I knew I wanted to be a writer, but I wasn't particularly fond of writing poems or stories. Creative writing just isn't for me. I wanted to be able to express my opinion through my writing, I wanted to be known for my unique style. Granted, I could do this with creative writing, but not the way I intended. Basically, I want to be known for what Carrie in Sex in the City is known for, minus the sex part.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Sex in the City, first of all you should be because it's a fabulous show. =D Second of all, Carrie is a journalist. She constantly has people coming up to her telling her how much they love her column. She gets to meet amazing people and she actually has discussions about her writing. I want people to talk about the way I report the news or express my opinion, not how juicy my latest novel is, not that there's anything wrong with that- like I said, it's just not for me.

I want to be proud of my writing, I want to break boundaries and stir up conversations everywhere. I just want to be myself, I want to shine through every assignment I get (hopefully!)

My dream job would be writing for Rolling Stone, I'd love to be a music critic. Two of my passions, writing and music.

Before coming to Seton Hill, I didn't know I had SO MUCH MORE to learn about journalism than I knew. I thought, eh it can't be THAT HARD. Boy, was I wrong.

I don't think people who aren't involved in journalism understand just how complicated of a field it is. Aside from having to totally eliminate opinion in news articles, following AP style like your life depended on it, using active verbs, integrating quotes smoothly, and countless other journlism rules to live by (well this is a run on sentence if I've never seen one before), there's much more to being a journalist.

*exhale*

For me, writing is the easiest part. It's attending the events and getting the quotes and background information that's the hard part. From my personal experience, getting sources for articles is super frustrating. I usually e-mail people first to ask if they'd rather respond through e-mail, or set up a convenient time for an interview. For me, 99% of the time people would rather respond through e-mail. As a journalist it's my job to cater to them because I NEED THEIR VOICE. So it's the same thing most of the time, agree to the e-mail interview, send the questions, wait until the last minute for a response. I've been starting to give a lenghty deadline for my responses, usually the night before the article is due, or the morning of. People are always more than willing to help, but sometimes the responses don't get to me until very late, sometimes not at all. So I've learned over the past year to have backup sources.

I'd like to pause here to extent my thanks to Neha for always being there to give me guidance and even grab a source for me when I'm desperate. That girl knows everybody, I swear. You need connections in the journalism biz'. Neha is my connection to SHU, haha. I'm a commuter so I don't really know anybody except my fellow Setonians and journalism majors.

So, although journalists are looked upon as the devil (an exaggeration, people) just know all we're doing is our job. I don't agree with all the progpaganda mumbe jumbo, but journalists are supposed to give the facts. I intend to be true to my assignments in school, and in my career. I know not one person can totally alter the world's opinion of journalists, but one person can attract followers. Hopefully I'll be able to help restore people's confidence in journalists.

I know everybody on the Setonian staff tries their damndest to make everything perfect, to not have conflict of interest, to follow AP style to a T, to present both sides. I just wanted to commend you all for this, it's wonderful working with you.