Dream Bigger
Old school meets new school
A reporter with the Stephenville Empire-Tribune named Meghan Donald showed up a couple of days ago to look around the Oxford House — where my employers have set up a pillow showroom on the first floor — and also to talk to me. What she didn’t know until she arrived was that I was going to interview her, too. I had fun. I’m not sure she did. This was news subject’s dream, but a reporter’s nightmare.
What a difference a generation makes: I still make notes by hand
Donald is fresh to newspapering. She graduated in December 2008 from Howard Payne University in Brownwood, an hour or so southwest of Stephenville. Her husband had moved to Stephenville to work, and luckily the E-T was looking for a reporter. It is the first and only newspaper to which she has applied for work. So far, Donald has a perfect one-to-one ratio of job interviews to job offers. Sadly, it probably only goes downhill from here, considering that the newspaper business has already lost nearly 13,000 jobs this year. Still, she’s working as a reporter, loves everything about the job, and is grateful for the opportunity. There aren’t too many happy people in the business these days. It was nice to meet one.
When we talked, I asked Donald what she had done so far that day on behalf of the public’s right to know what everyone else was up to. Starting with the moment she walked in the newsroom door that morning, Donald: (1) made and took some phone calls; (2) wrote a story about a sexual assault in Dublin (the nearby Texas town, not the Irish capital); (3) compiled a lengthy list of school supplies so that parents will know (thanks to the ever-helpful E-T) what their children will need when the new school year starts; (4) proofread stories already prepared for publication in the E-T; (5) scanned photos for future use; and (6) visited the Oxford House to watch people feel up pillows. Ahead of her was an interview with a local fellow who’s trying to get his pilot’s license. That’s the ordinary life of a reporter at a small-town daily. I know this first-hand.
Donald snaps a photo
Then I asked which story has been her best to date. Instead, Donald told me about her most challenging story. In February, three people from the area were killed in a car accident, two of them teenage girls. Donald later drove to the scene of the crash, where an impromptu gathering of the girls’ friends was being held, to shoot a photograph. That’s what news people do, and that’s when they feel most vulture-like (if they’ve got a soul). Donald told me she went back to the newsroom and cried. Clearly, she has a soul.
Twice, Donald expressed discomfort about having the reporting process turned around on her. The second time, she said: “I’ve never been interviewed. I’m so nervous. I probably said retarded things that’ll get me in trouble.”
Actually, she did better than I did. When Donald asked what, exactly, my title was, I declared that “blogger” didn’t have have sufficient dignity and that instead I preferred “creator of online literature.” It was a wiseguy response, and I got what I deserved. She put that answer, in all its pompous glory, in the very first paragraph of her article.
Related Posts
No related posts.
