Saturday, December 10, 2011

Checklist for being a real journalist

   Stuff journalists like, is a fantastic website for journo's. When I manage to sneak a free five minutes once a week out of my work day I enjoy reading the site pretty regularly. Yesterday I saw this list about what it takes to be a 'real' journalist.Numbers 3 and 10 are the only ones that don't really apply to me, at least not yet. I can see both creeping up in my future...
   Number 15 was a favorite past time for me until recently when I moved into the sports department. Ah well, some day I'll return to a council meeting I'm sure.
   Enjoy the list, and then check out the website for more awesome stuff like it.

  1. Written a 15-inch story in 30 minutes
  2. Corrected a loved one’s grammar in a greeting card
  3. Replaced one of the major food groups with coffee
  4. Own your own police scanner
  5. Eat in your car more often than you do at a table
  6. Gotten fired/laid off for no good reason
  7. Forgotten what it’s like to have the weekend off
  8. Can no longer read a newspaper without scanning for typos and errors
  9. Learned that being told to “fuck off “ and “go to hell” is part of the job
  10. Woke in a cold sweat thinking you forgot to change the date on A1
  11. Spend your down time coming up with the perfect lede
  12. Slept in your car and not because you were too drunk to drive home
  13. Found that fine line between harassment and persistence
  14. If you needed bail, the first person you would call would be your editor
  15. You analyze city council meetings the way sportscasters break down Monday night football
  16. You think it’s normal to work 16 hours a day for 8 hours pay
  17. Have conducted a phone interview while completely naked
  18. Can write an entire interview on a cocktail napkin
  19. Threatened to quit over an editorial decision
  20. You couldn’t imagine doing anything else

3 comments:

  1. I may not be a journalist, but 2, 7 and 8 apply to me for sure.
    Anyways, great list, these are the kinds of things I imagine Woodward and Bernstein went through.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well your a psuedo journo. You have been published in the paper a few times now.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Pseudo Journo, what Brian Canham would use as an alias if he went into journalism.

    ReplyDelete