Journalism

Doing a j-school internship panel tomorrow. Don't know why because I have entirely too much stuff to get done, such as my senior journalism project and studying for a research methods in Sociology midterm but I do love helping out the younger j-school kids.

Will talk about my summer at The Oregonian. One of my professors suggested thinking up some anecdotes or specific things we'd like to share.

Thought of an intern lunch we had with an amazing Pulitzer-prize winning reporter.

Everything she said totally stuck with me.

As journalists, we're very know-it-all. We know a little bit about a lot of different things and we keep up with the news so we know what's going on in the world, which a lot more than most people can say.

But she said it's arrogant of us to think we know anything.

"Our job is to shut up and listen. We're the least informed people in the room."

We go into every assignment with an idea of the story. But it's arrogant of us to think we can tell someone else what their story is. And she was completely right. Very much something we need to remind ourselves at certain points.

-- Carolina Hidalgo