This is the latest installment in my memoir project, written as a series of letters to my future daughter. Here are the previous entries: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight, and Part Nine
So I glossed over one pretty important facet of my college experience — the newspaper.
By the time you read this, “newspaper” will be an obsolete term and the news as you know it will be a bunch of angry guys writing think pieces about whatever their party is upset about at the moment. That is, if the art of news writing hasn’t entirely been overtaken by AI. But back when I was in the journalism world, objective journalism, real journalism, was still gasping for air on its deathbed.
Enter The Eastern Echo.
The Echo was the student-run paper at Eastern Michigan University, and it beckoned to me around the same time I was frustrated with music therapy. I wanted to find something — anything — I was actually good at, and writing was that thing. Even my boss, the assholiest of assholes, couldn’t deny my talent at it. And what a life I’d have as a journalist! Perhaps I’d be the intrepid reporter you see in movies, or a glamorous blogger living in a high-rise apartment in NYC. I allowed myself to dream as I grew to be the best writer on the team, and in less than a year, I was bumped up to arts and entertainment editor.
Life was good as an editor. I had my own office in a creepy, half-abandoned building we shared with the student radio station, and the authorities made the mistake of giving me an access key I could use at any given time. Your mothers and Aunt Mel used to smoke a certain herb in that office at odd hours of the night (back when it was still illegal, mind you). We’d put on some random crap Aunt Mel was into at the time, or The Room, a truly terrible film by a guy named Tommy Wiseau who we currently have as a cardboard cutout (which hopefully will be passed along to you as a family heirloom). It was a halcyon time of reckless youthfulness.
But we still had work to do.
I won the position of editor-in-chief over a much older woman. The heads of the student media board wanted a fresh perspective from a younger person, and I, who was not even old enough to drink at the time, was the perfect candidate. I moved myself into the big office and got to work revamping the paper for a new generation of students. It wouldn’t be easy — we were used to our paper being used as kitty litter for the university students’ cats. It was going to take something wild to get people to actually pay attention to what we were putting out there.
And so, I wrote the poop article.
It’s still one of my proudest moments, this little article I penned about the best places on campus to poop. It went a little viral. Other college papers followed our lead and wrote their own. I was a minor celebrity! Everyone loved my poop article, and the campus was abuzz for days over it.
Yet, there were less savory aspects of the job I would’ve rather done without. The long hours in the office for little pay, having to make a staff of mostly older students listen to me, staying up late to edit every single article that came my way. And I was starting to see the cracks form in my journalistic dream. I was getting so stressed, I was sleeping most of the work day away, letting the assistant editors carry the brunt of the work. I recognize a lot of my problems as then-undiagnosed ADHD and anxiety issues now, but even if I had been mentally well, there were parts of the journalism life I really did not like. At all.
I remember the first time I had to cover a murder. It was difficult for me to talk to the parents of the slain student. I didn’t know what to even say in that situation. It wasn’t like music therapy, where I could sit in somber silence with them and support them in whichever way they needed. Instead, I had to pry for quotes. It felt so dirty, and I hated every second of it. Another time, a stray bullet injured another student. I found myself asking “How did it feel when you were shot?” And that was the moment I realized I couldn’t do this. I finished up my journalism degree and never, ever pursued anything related to journalism ever again.
As much as being editor-in-chief wore me down and left a bad taste in my mouth, I’m glad I had the opportunity to do it, since I learned a lot about myself from it. Sometimes you have to try something once to be able to admit it’s not for you. There’s no shame in that. And hey, I met your mom at that paper!
(Okay, I didn’t meet her there, per se, but it’s where I made her not hate me. Yeah, she hated me at first. Can you believe that?! That’s for another chapter, though. Hold on, we still got a couple more to go!)
JESSA JOYCE 