For optimal cognitive circulation, I try to start my mornings off with NPR, get some sort of news-like substance in my system alongside my coffee. Each article functions as another sip of intellectual caffeine; by cup's end, I am energized and alert, readier than I was before my brew to take on my morning. In the spirit of science communication, I've started seeking out science-specific news sources for articles that interest me enough to elicit a written response after reading.
As I type this, there are at least two dozen tabs open to stories from wired, npr, guardian, new youk times, and natgeo. I had meant to check newscientist, but my browser is so packed with tabs they're a quarter-inch thick, and that's a cue I need to recognize that says "stop clicking, dude." I've made a list in my journalism folders (bookmark and physical) of science news websites, podcasts and email lists. The trick is media immersion.
I read a post yesterday from Eric Berger asking readers who the next great science communicator is, and it got me thinking about my own ambitions. I realized, it's me. The more I read, the more I think, and re-read, and cross-check, and free-associate research (hence all the tabs open at once), the more accelerated my excitement is, like the act of reporting itself is more like a lead foot on an eight-cylinder, and each click is another slow vehicle changing lanes or exiting the freeway. Scooping empowers me, it gives me an all-over rush inside, as if I've just hopped off the treadmill after running for over a half an hour. I received a little more experience last semester with news writing and publication, and the effects on my confidence have been noticeable, not to mention productive.
Writing for a weekly publication required an implementation of a level of self-discipline, not large, but significant enough to keep deadlines and speak to strangers at events or over the phone. I became more familiar with my news-grade camera in organic settings and posed shots, and if you own a DSLR and lack the formal training requisite to operating one effectively, you can appreciate how diminished my frustration level is with my portable $700 investment. I also acquired and effectively utilized a handheld microphone, which is quite an accomplishment, as I had been neglecting my $50 investment in my car's center console for the past few months. Apparantly I can't write while driving "because it's dangerous and a bad idea oh no fender bender wtf", but I felt so pretentious being seen speaking into my hand. Then again, if the opinions of others supersede my own, isn't that sort of like social slavery? An unnecessary idea, either way; I'm much more productive with it, and i can get natural, accurate quotes with it.
Tech aside, I committed to producing regular news writing and made good on my word. Writing is something I am obsessed with and eternally put off until I started writing for the paper. I've established a rhythm, so reporting feels less awkward, and with the responses I've been getting from peers and the people I'm covering, I've been seriously considering science journalism as a post-college career option. A realistic one, not an "Imma get published every day and write what I want!", more an "I have the clips, contacts, passion and experience to impress an employer and cash a check for journalism."
For the first time ever, my little girl dream of writing science for the newspaper seems feasible. I allow myself to think about it now, and use the ambition to motivate my actions, and read more, write more, rinse, repeat. I remember taking a class tour of the Kansas City Star in the fifth grade, thinking "I'm gonna work here" as I looked at the desks and the papers strewn about coffee cups and hundreds of post-its and pens without caps and pinned scraps of idea and photo. I must have been eleven or ten, real young. Around that time, I started running, too. That was the year my mom gave me my all-time favorite book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens by Sean Covey. It's odd that a self-help book is my fondest, you say? But I love it so much!
I have always taken notes, I cannot leave the house without a pen and notepad, or i'll just end up inadvertently pilfering the waitress' pen scrawling notes on a napkin stained with chicken or something equally delicious. My grandma, a couple months before she died, said I always did love to write. That's gonna be one of those "stick with ya" quotes for me, I can already feel it. I remember at 14, when 9/11 hit I was a freshman, and I was devastated. Cried all day, my peers asked me if I had family in New York, as if it Cmattered, it was nuts! The bodies? Seeing the second one hit? Dude, I almost blacked out. I came home, and did something I'll never forget, something that will define my professional ambitions for the rest of my life: I turned on the radio and the television in my room, locked the door, and began writing. Scrawling, everything I could hear, see, think of, it got written down, like some methed out Pokemon trainer on a bender in an especially populated part of the map. I stopped crying at some point because the ink stopped smearing, I was so confused, and felt raw, so I kept writing, ripping, stacking piles, remembering names and numbers and cross referencing between breaking sources, attempting to uncover some solution, ANY indication or thread of certainty or security, and there wasn't any. The largest national disaster since pearl harbor, and there's no story. It was then that I saw it, the talking heads, the corporate lead-ins, the cheery PC propaganda pieces, the shiny sterile looking mouth pieces in suits that get returned alongside the clip on mic. This is a dog and pony show. You people, what are you saying? Who are you talking to? This is no solution! You're facilitating the emergency at this point, or at least refusing to cease acceleration in your coverage of what, exactly? Nothing!
Two things I will never, ever forget from that evening: reporting is a way to cope and understand chaos (it aids), and reporting is a way to control the mind with fear and the illusion of professionalism and expertise. i am most satisfied with the former, and am naturally inclined towards it, but I must always expect the latter, and not be fooled by misinformation. A very stark establishment of journalistic integrity, to be sure.
Okay, the links:
(TBA need to interview a Campus Sustainability department head for a story, then head to a staff meeting for the paper. posting news when i return)
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