I’d mentioned that I’d started a reporting job up here, hadn’t I? Well, day one in the newsroom was quite a shock and I went home disheartened, discouraged and disappointed. My lifelong dreams of saving the world with my journalism, and the culmination of four years getting the degree seemed to be working in a snail’s-paced newsroom where my lead story is about a cat stuck in a tree.
The people here are great, and the newsroom works like most I’ve worked in before. But my discouragement came with the lack of challenge, the lowered expectations and the laissez-faire attitude that has become the paper’s modus operandi.
“I am ready for so much more, and here I am stalled, bored,” I cried to fiancé after my first day. He loved his job, la-dee-da and go figure.
But, never one to give up until at least something better came along, I agreed to give the paper a chance. I have grown more fond of it and have found great joy in covering stories that may not grab national headlines, but that make a difference in the lives of the people that read my work, which has become a great reward I had previously not experienced.
I think Marley’s story best relays my sentiment.
In the middle of a hot, stuffy day when I was feverishly working away on a big story, I got called out to cover a story at the humane society. There, the photographer and I met Marley, a golden lab mix left with three legs after being hit by a car and left to die. Humane society workers estimate he had been roadside for weeks, suffering and starving. When a caring citizen did pick him up and bring him in, the animal shelter got to work organizing the dog’s medical care. When we arrived to do the story, Marley was nursing his fresh amputation wound and building up his strength. He wagged his tail and dog-smiled at us with his big brown eyes.
The shelter had incurred great costs to fund to dog’s operation, and had called the paper to ask the public for help.
I wrote the story, we ran it alongside touching photos of a smiling, three-legged dog and I went home early.
I brought fiancé to the humane society on Saturday to show him the kitty and puppy I had picked out for us while covering Marley’s story. We waited in line for an attendant to show us the animals and I smiled all giddy at the cute critters in the windows. While waiting, curiosity got the best of me and I listened to the people in front of me.
“I am wanting to give some money to help out that poor dog in the paper,” said the lady in front of me wearing a fruit-pattered top and rain boots.
“That story was just so moving, I had to help.”
And my heart melted. I felt like Superman. I hadn’t swooped down to save a damsel in distress, but my words had helped this poor dog with three legs and big smile. I felt so good.
And when I got to the front of the line, I didn’t even tell her I was “the one” who wrote the story. Which is a big step for normally show-offy me.

Labels: journalism, reporting, work