THAT FIRST DAY, I sat in the lobby and waited for the editor in chief, Dean, to escort me into the newsroom. On the coffee table I spotted the current issue and flipped through it. Typically when I’d pick up a newspaper, I’d skim headlines and read the articles. But not today. Without realizing it, I denied this tendency and instead analyzed the layout, the type of stories covered, the names of reporters, the color scheme, the advertisements. I was no longer a typical reader—now I was a reporter.
Dean arrived. He wore dark, rectangular glasses, and his hair was short and messy (yet inadvertently stylish). I guessed him to be in his late thirties. He seemed tired and busy; I got the impression he had a lot on his mind.
“Welcome, Sean. Come with me,” he said, extending his hand. Then he led me through the office to the newsroom.
The newsroom was a stark contrast to the stillness of the lobby with its soft elevator music and comfy leather chairs. A sense of urgency filled the air as people buzzed around, phones rang, keyboards tapped, and colleagues discussed the day’s hot news items. I took a seat in Dean’s office and we went over my ideas for potential articles: redefining the word career, the trade-off between money and happiness, my generation’s outlook on the workplace. He was quick to give me the go-ahead. I wondered if he was convinced of my ideas or simply had more important things to take care of. Either way, I was off to my desk to conduct interviews, gather information, and write my pieces.
To research, I visited a couple of campuses around Vancouver and interviewed students about what they wanted to do after college, why they thought so many members of our generation have difficulty deciding on a career, and what they’re specifically looking for in a career.
I was quick to play the part—notebook and pen in hand, I’d approach a group of students and immediately assert my credibility. “Hi, I’m a reporter with Vancouver 24 Hours.” I’d ask my question, put on my best Anderson Cooper face (an inquisitive, unchanging stare), then listen intently while jotting notes in my reporter’s notebook. With several usable quotes, I hurried back to the office to write up the story before my deadline at the end of the day.
I began:
My generation, those born after 1980, has been described as a “Peter Pan generation,” “adultescents,” “kidults,” and a host of others to describe how we are putting off the transition into adulthood later than previous generations; generally taking longer to finish college, get married, move out, start a family and enter the workforce. If you asked me when I was ten, I probably would have told you that I would be well into my professional career and expecting my second child by now. But at the age of 25, I have no idea what I want to do as a career, I still live at home, and could not conceive of getting married at this point in my life. Guess what? I am not alone.
After only one day, I could understand why Dean seemed so preoccupied all the time. It must be stressful being responsible for putting together a new paper each day. He had to manage a team, edit several pieces, decide what stories to cover, and attempt to make each paper better than the last. I imagined there’s a point every day when the pressure mounts and the staff doubts whether they’ll be able to pull it all off.
Dean left the office late, clearly exhausted but, I’d guess, satisfied, with a sense of completion—another paper was ready to go to press and hit the newsstand. The next morning, while sipping a cup of coffee, he’d see the result of everyone’s hard work. But he dare not linger too long in admiration—there was always another paper to produce, more decisions to be made, and the next deadline quickly approaching.
The credibility I sought in announcing my new “reporter” title was short-lived when I returned to the office the next morning and was denied by the employee entrance.
But then I got my next assignment. Dean sent me out with another reporter to research a homicide that had occurred the night before at a high school party. I felt like a police investigator. The few details we had about the incident were vague. We had to visit the crime scene and interview neighbors, friends, and police, and visit the high school the victim had attended.
It was a sad story, and I didn’t feel right being among every major media station in Vancouver trying to capture a few good quotes and names to construct a complete story. A reporter’s job is to ask the tough questions and uncover the facts. As a neighbor explained how he awoke to yelling outside early that morning, reporters pushed him to describe in detail what he saw when he rushed from his house and found the victim lying wounded in the driveway. Perhaps some of my discomfort was a result of my inexperience, but I felt like I was prying into the lives of others and getting involved in something that was none of my business.
After we finished at the crime scene, we made our way with the rest of the media caravan to the victim’s high school. It was close to noon, and the students would soon be on their lunch break. With no reporters allowed on school property, we all waited at the curb to pounce on students as they stepped off school grounds. The goal was to find a friend of the victim to speak with.
“Hey, look, there’s a couple kids with flowers. They seem sad. Quick, over there.” When one reporter found a student willing to talk, others would rush over, tape recorders and cameras in hand. “When you heard the news this morning, how did it make you feel?”
“Tell us about your friend, what was he like?”
“What’s it like to know that you will never see him again?”
After a visit to the police station to solidify details of the incident, the story was complete. We drove back to the city and typed out the article; I made it home in time for dinner. Tomorrow would be a new day, a new story. In a profession that deals with such tough circumstances daily, being a bit detached may be the only way to cope with the job. I wonder. For me, it was all too real.
A testament to the stark contrasts in the world of daily reporting, my next assignment was to help cover a wine-tasting festival in downtown Vancouver. After visiting a few booths, I met Bill Hardy of Hardys wine. An older man, probably in his sixties, he picked up a bottle and in his Australian accent said, “This one’s named after my grandfather. And this one over here after my grandmother.” He wasn’t keen on my suggestion that he name one after me.
He explained how the festival worked and the etiquette of wine tasting. I was lucky that I ran into him when I did. I was going on my fifth tasting and was astounded by the countless rows of booths representing different wineries. I couldn’t understand how people could withstand this for an entire day. After I’d tasted a couple of varieties of the Hardys label, Bill said, “You know, Sean, you don’t have to drink all of each sample. That’s why they have spit buckets next to each booth.” You really do learn something every day.
I like the immediacy that comes with reporting. I found it easy to stay engaged and motivated knowing that there was a deadline at the end of the day. For me, if a project is too long-term, it can be easy to lose interest. It needs to be broken down into short-term, achievable goals to keep me motivated. In the news world, each day you leave the office never certain what tomorrow will bring. For me, tomorrow brought good news in an email from a man named Manuel:
Hello Sean, Just saw an article about your project while I was in Edmonton this week. It reminds me of when I had no idea of what I wanted to do for a living at age 25. I’m now 40 and I don’t think it’s a generational issue. Some people know what they want to do, some don’t. Some think they know (often under parental influence) and realize their mistake later on.
There is a good fit between your initiative and our job search engine, NiceJob.ca, and I would like to help you.
The next week we met for coffee, and it was settled. In exchange for a banner on my website and mention in media interviews, NiceJob would give me $1,000 per month to put toward travel expenses. The One-Week Job project officially had a sponsor.
It was time to hit the road.
