I’ve received genuine emails of support as well. Their value is immeasurable, as nobody but nobody wants only to write and not read. No matter what they say. Everybody wants to be read.
But what I really was going write about was why this measly piece of everyday student newspaper journalism killed me dead in my tracks. So why did I react so strongly? I mean I’ve fucked up before and I’ve been told so, too. Why did this measly incident escalate into such a crisis? The reason is three-fold.
First of all what happened was that I took the whole thing very personally. Professionals are supposed to be able to separate their personal lives from their professional ones. I obviosly am not a professional. Someone critizing my writing is implicitly also dissing me as a person, as the story isn’t just reporting facts. Interviews usually aren’t. Sometimes the writer tells his opinion between the lines, sometimes he does it openly. As did I. And boy, did that one crash.
Second there was the fact that I had no one to fall back on. No editor I could blame for the subject matter, for choosing the interviewee, for imposing this expectations on me. I was all alone out there. This is, obviously, a two-edged sword for the writer. All the glory that comes from a good story is going to land on his shoulders and his shoulders alone…*; but that didn’t happen, not this time.
The third bit is even trickier. See, I don’t consider myself a real journalist. This isn’t a value judgement but a monetary one. My revenues are generated first and foremost from studying, so even though I do a bit of writing and not that much studying, my primary reference group is still university students. Therein also lays the problem.
You see, I thought I had a routine. I thought I had some skill. I thought that I was a competent journalist, even though if I wasn’t a great one. I thought I’d handled the interview and the writing okay and that things were in order. The subject’s comments pointed out quite clearly that they weren’t. I felt like a hack. I felt like all my training and work experience had done me no good. It was like my whole career as a journalist was suddenly annulled.
But here I am again, writing and trying hard not to look too self-indulgent. Well okay, I’m a tad self-centered. I mean come on, I’m writing this in my blog. Why?
Because it helps.
*: Strictly speaking this isn’t true, because the general public still seems to have difficulties in recognizing that news are made by individuals, not by the media illuminati. You dimwitted individual in the back: most pieces of copy include a byline that has the authors name on it. Yes, that there. It means the story wasn’t written by the paper itself but by a person, just like you and me. Yes, an individual.
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