I have a life outside the newsroom.
I know, it's hard to believe if you go to a lot of Pine River events. Everyone is always telling me, "Hey, I just saw you at blah blah!"
Admittedly, a lot of my personal life is wandering through the woods by myself picking things (everyone else is afraid of poisoning), but that's beside the point. The point is that I am willing to bet that people rarely look at a news report on TV or in the newspaper and think about what normal, everyday things happen to the reporter or news staff responsible for that report.
You hear a lot about conspiracy theories involving the media, and I'm not necessarily going to say they don't happen, but more often than you might believe, faults in the newsroom are likely more due to the fact that the person in front of the camera is just like you.
It's hard to forget that when it seems like we/they cease to even exist once you stop looking at them. It is so hard to identify with the news crew on your favorite channel when you see them all the time, but they are never doing anything you would consider remotely normal in your own life. Those normal things, including difficulties they face, are the things that secretly shape news stories often without the public being aware and sometimes without the reporters themselves being aware. That must be the point of columns.
ADVERTISEMENT
So, to remedy that issue on my own behalf at least, I am going to lay bare the last vestige of my life when I am not interviewing. I am going to reveal the frustrations that make one story harder to cover than another. I am going to illustrate my own experiences to reveal to you the horrible, terrible truth behind why I am so weird.
In short, I am going to give you a glimpse of my everyday life, specifically the parts that make me who I am and those I have to experience to write my news stories.
That's right ... I have a blog.
I know, I'm about 10 years late. Everybody and their 10-year-old niece has a blog, but get off my back. A friend once told me I have a million hobbies but still find time to be bored. Let's just say I meant to blog at one time, but I was doing hobby 587 at the time and couldn't be bothered.
Admittedly, some of my blog will be about little projects and hobbies. For example, I wrote about turning concert wristbands into jewelry this week. I will also write about those thoughts I have about my assignments. One recent example was a story I did on the struggle behind writing a memorial story for someone you know.
Admittedly, most people will still look at my personal life and think I never do anything normal. However, at least you should occasionally get a good laugh, and that should at least reveal to you that I'm too scatterbrained to scheme behind the scenes. But I do make mistakes.
So, now, without further ado, I invite you to my new staff blog, called Outside the Newsroom. You can find it at http://outsidethenewsroom.areavoices.com/ or visit pineandlakes.com and scroll down to "Area Voices." So far I am the only one there.
