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I was a journalism major in college, and I have lots of cool experiences from my years writing for the college newspaper and from several internships as a reporter, copy editor, and photographer.
One of my favorite moments came when a county commissioner didn't like a story I wrote about a monthly commissioners' meeting. He called me up and said to me, "Your job is to come to the meetings and just report the facts of what happened."
I told him, "No, actually, my job is to stay awake during your dull meetings and try to find a single interesting morsel that I can magically spin into 8 column inches so that my publisher can sell some newspapers. And frankly, you're really making me earn my money."
Yeah, I was 2o at the time. I wasn't taking shit from any dumb-ass Southern Maryland county commissioner. I was Dustin Hoffman in "All the President's Men" and I was tired of people wasting my time and talents. As my boyfriend Anderson Cooper would say, I was "keeping them honest" even if I had to dig for something – anything – interesting.
But, there's a good lesson here for all of you student leaders. It's not the job of a newspaper reporter to show up and be your stenographer. It's not the job of the reporter to write about the facts as you would like to present them. If you would like your version of the facts translated directly to the public, publish your own newspaper, or join the Chinese Communist Party.
The job of the newspaper reporter is to sort through the nonsense and the bullshit and find something worthy of the reader's time and interest the next day. That's a hard job. If you don't believe me, watch a half hour of C-SPAN then an hour of ABC Nightly News and tell me that Charles Gibson and his team aren't earning their paychecks.
I remember covering the student government for the college newspaper 20 years ago. Their meeting was so damn dull, I wrote my story that night about what people wore to the meeting. At least it was interesting. My editors loved it, but the student government officers were furious at me. I told them to quit being boring and do something worth writing about. They called my editor and asked her to send someone else to cover them, and she told them to go screw themselves. And, she told them they needed to start dressing a little better.
It was the 80's, but still...
So, take note, dear student leader. If you want press coverage, do something interesting and different. We, the journalists of the world, are not here to make you look good or spread the positive word about your efforts. We're here to cull through the garbage and find something that doesn't stink of rot. Being a newspaper reporter is a lot like trolling yard sales – it's mostly junk out there, but occasionally you come across something cool.
The sooner you understand and accept that, the sooner you'll be able to develop a relationship with your student newspaper that benefits everyone.
