The J-Word

For the Record...

There have been a startling couple of entries to the laundry list of Professor Serb quotes!

A class field trip we took for one of my journalism classes yesterday to Al Jazeera English really got me thinking about my future profession. First of all, it was amazing, and I was really impressed by the devotion of everyone we talked to in making sure their news is unbiased. (If anyone carried it in the states, I would watch it.) Also, if we could see anymore of it, we would know that it isn't just bin Laden videos streaming 24/7. But there's my little mini-speech.

Talking to some of my fellow Newhousians, I have begun to think 'what have we gotten ourselves into?' Most of us are in the same boat at the moment--frantically searching for summer internships, and worried that if finding one of those is so hard, how are we going to find real jobs next year? (My stomach is churning at the thought.) I mean think about it...when you're going into a profession where your salary is dependent on selling newspapers...as we move towards a paper-less world. And it isn't just the fact that we're all competing against each other for the same jobs--the industry is changing so much that it needs less and less people. The Chicago Sun-Times let almost a third of their newsroom go several months ago to save money. And Al-Jazeera's cameras are all robotic! So much for camerapeople.

We all have our different reasons for deciding to study at a J-school. Some people are just naturally good writers and reporters. Some want to be the next Ted Koppel or Bob Costas (ayooooo!) Others went to college without any idea what they wanted to go into and settled on that. (One thing we don't go into the profession for: money. At starting salaries of around $20,000 a year, even if we do get jobs we'll be living in a box on the side of the road.)

My particular reason was something that happened about 10 years ago, before moving from Illinois to Connecticut. A bunch of Northwestern investigative journalism students were able to prove that several prisoners were innocent, some of whom were on death row and scheduled to be executed soon after. They saved their lives and helped influence Gov. Ryan to institute a moratorium on capital punishment in the state of Illinois. (Say what you want about him as a person--it's pretty incredible that they were able to do that.)

So there you have it. All there is that's left for me to do is go to grad school at NU to take that class, and then start working at The Trib. My life will be complete. Now if I could just find an internship...

On a somewhat lighter note, all of this talking about Chicago-related things has gotten me to thinking about the Cubbies, who had their season opener the other day! I'm not going to get into the heartbreaks of years past, or the fact that mine and every other fan's blood is boiling about the selling of the naming rights to Wrigley (but I will say WTF!?) but I will say, as we have hit the century mark this year since the last time they won the series, this is the year! (It better be...)

It's off to Paris tomorrow, for a weekend with Professor Serb. You can be sure there will be several posts on his antics when I get back!

Thanks for listening.

~Jamie