The Craziness... or Trying To Find An Interview at an Elementary School

Trying to put together a news story, as a single person is a struggle. Now, I’ve learned putting together a news story as a group of journalists makes me want to pull my hair out and lapse into a coma. Frankly, putting myself into a coma would be easier.

My class and I were putting together a bunch of stories about the town of Juniper, after they lost their mills and now, are losing their elementary school. My portion of the group work was talking to the school and manage to get an interview with a teacher about the school closing in Juniper. Did I mention lapsing into a coma would have been easier?

The first week trying to make contact was a lovely game of cat and mouse. I would call the school and ask to speak to the principal and they would take a message, saying the principal would call me back. Sometimes, I’m a little gullible and actually believed it.  That was probably my first mistake.

Putting off calling the school back was so much easier, especially when you’re trying to put a TV show together each week all the while trying to catch a principal. Thank God for Fridays, they always bring me success, and potential interviews. I had made contact with the principal at the school, it just needed for me to convince her to let my class of journalists in to interview a teacher and take pictures of the students. Yup, lapsing into a coma would have been a hell of a lot easier.

During one of our class meetings, we found a former teacher willing to talk to us. The sun was certainly shinning down on me that day! I called the principal back and she agreed to book my class in for a school visit. It took some team effort, some hair pulling and persistence but I managed to get my class

Winning an award: proof your journalism skills just might get you a job

I always had this need to be the best in everything I did, so I always took my time, making sure every word was perfectly written, everything was perfectly lined up and I started things ahead of time. When I started the journalism course last September, I never thought I would be able to handle it. Then, I got a summer job working at a newspaper. That’s when things started to turn around.

Before that school year ended, two of my classmates won Atlantic Journalism Awards, signaling they were definitely top students, hard working and creative. Knowing I didn’t win brought me down, but being able to work on a newspaper for two months and have them ask me to come back for my practicum gave me new hope that I might just succeed this year.

With my final year underway, I was terrified about the amount of work we were going to be doing; a news show every week plus print and radio stories with different beats we had to meet. I was stressed. I shook my head, every reporter has this task, I thought to myself and plowed through the first semester.

What I started to notice was that my confidence had taken a huge energy drink and went skyrocketing. I was getting creative with everything I did. Maybe it was seeing all the work I did at the paper and was acknowledged for being a creative writer and crafty reporter, not afraid to get right to the story and dive right in. I was actually enjoying myself, and the stress was disappearing.

For some reason, what I didn’t realize was being a journalist met writing a cover letter and resumes in these fancy formats I had never seen before. Who was I kidding? I had never done such a thing before in my life! In fact, when I applied for the summer job at the newspaper, they required a cover letter and resume, which I never did submit and apparently I was worth the unprofessional email I had sent. Even when it came to applying for practicum, I didn’t bother being professional with anything I wrote to the editor at the paper and was immediately accepted there. I even applied at the radio station in that same town, a little more formally, and was accepted! What the hell would I need these resume and cover letter writing classes for? Then, it dawned on me! If I ever wanted to be a part of the entertainment reporting industry, I would need to know this! And what would you know, someone in my class had connections to my all time dream job show: Entertainment Tonight Canada. Ok, so maybe there was a practical reason for learning this resume writing stuff.

Well, with that fire lit under my butt, I started planning immediately, and dreaming might I add. Jocelyn Turner, amazing entertainment reporter and graduate from NBCC Woodstock! My instructors would be so proud of me! Now, to write the stupid letters!

All the creative writing and journalism print writing couldn’t prepare me for actually trying to write a freaking cover letter. What was I supposed to say? Hi! I’m Jocelyn! I’m a huge fan! Please let me do my practicum with you? Apparently, it’s never that easy. I really think they should have wrote about the cover letter writing experience in the stupid course outline: warning to potential journalism students… you will have to learn how to write a cover letter!

I wrote up my resume and what I thought would be a good cover letter as fast as I could so I could potentially send it off on Monday. Well, my amazing instructor wouldn’t have it that way! No, he wanted me to be more professional. I guess winning an award doesn’t always make things easier, people just expect more of you. So my week concluded with me having a huge cold and trying to manage the production of our weekly TV show, which is a headache on its own but add trying to write a cover letter and resume to that and really, you wish you had a loaded gun!

Because I had won the Atlantic Journalism Award, I felt like people would expect more of me, which wasn’t all together false, they just knew I was capable of more. So with my resume completed, my cover letter written and the application sent off to Entertainment Tonight Canada, I could spend the remaining little bit of my energy on working on the show. Did I mention that when you’re trying to become a true journalist, you have to multitask?