Heather Fields

Journalism is a challenge in itself. It's definitely not for everyone. A lot of people come in to pursue that degree, and they turn away from it, and it's completely understandable why. It's fiercely competitive. Every outlet, every editor has their own style, and then there's the criticism. People are reading this piece of work that you yourself pursued and created, and they might hate it, and they might say you were stupid for asking that question, or you were stupid for writing about that, and you shouldn't have. Or they say you're writing about the wrong things, like why are you writing about this when you could be writing about that? I also just feel like people don't understand the scope of what we really do. People think about journalists like, oh, it's just the woman with the little backpack and microphone running after the President. But it's not that. It's a lot of sifting through documents, reading, because you have to be able to contextualize everything based on what's happened in the past. It's a lot of struggling to get a phone call, you're waiting for people to text you back, and then you set up the time for an interview, and they're not on the Zoom call. It's an entire process of research, interview, organize all your files of research that you have, find the best quotes, write, and then edit, and then get feedback, and then edit again, and then try to get it all in on a deadline. If something happens with your story, like something big happens that day, and it was due at 4, and it's 3:03, you gotta put that in. It's gotta be updated, so you gotta figure it out, make sure it's correct, make sure everybody's name is spelled correctly, or they're gonna come hunt you down. I don't think anybody that really goes into journalism works a typical 9-to-5 until they're very seasoned, or they become an educator or something like that.