The boredom of traditional news reporting
Whenever someone asks me why I chose journalism, my answer is comparable to those perfectly iced sugar cookies everyone picks up at the grocery store but puts back before the check-out line—sweet, yet very processed.
I say, “I’ve always loved writing stories, but could never come up with any of my own. With journalism I can still tell stories, they’re just not mine.” While this reasoning remains partly true, I have come to a few crucial realizations since I began studying journalism.
I do love telling stories, just not all of them. Quite frankly, politics and traditional news do not interest me. And if you know the journalism program, you know the first year focuses on establishing the fundamentals through traditional news reporting, which bores me to death. By the end of the first semester, my breathing had slowed significantly. I told my mother that if she chose a solid mahogany casket, I would rise from the dead to make the switch to solid bronze myself.
Also, there’s my gripe with multimedia classes and renting equipment from the depot. I’m technologically inept, so that’s the main struggle. There’s also the fact that I live about an hour away from the Loyola campus via public transit, and I travel all that way for the three minutes it takes to pick up my equipement. It’s a huge inconvenience. I live in Laval, so that’s equivalent to when Kim Kardashian flew to New Orleans for the evening for beignets. Except, I don’t leave with anything that delicious.
But to blame my struggles entirely on my program would be a lie. Truth be told, I’m an insecure writer, constantly invalidating and comparing my work to that of my peers. No matter how many times someone assures me I’m meant to be in journalism or that the talent I don’t think I have is real, I’m always doubtful.
I still love journalism and writing, but more so on my own terms. I’ll have to push through until that’s my reality and I can work on what interests me. Because, honestly, I don’t see myself doing anything else.
Graphic by Zeze Le Lin