If you read this in the morning, I’m probably out talking about online journalism with three high school students: Sara Quenzer, Olivia Sorrells and Tesla Lackey. I know their names because I got a letter saying so from Julie Gussenhoven, committee chair of the Redding Rotary’s annual job shadow program.
By 11:30 the three students and I will attend the lunch at Riverview Country Club, joined by dozens of other job shadow high school kids, as well as Rotarians and people like me, who agreed to let high school students hang out for a few hours to learn more about our various occupations.
As it is with many things to which I say yes, as I write this on the eve of the Rotary job shadow commitment, I kind of wish I hadn’t agreed to it. Every year I feel a little nervous as I imagine a situation where the kids clam up, roll their eyes and drink the frappuccinos I purchase for them as they yawn and scroll through their cell phones.
That’s never happened, but it’s my annual pre-job-shadow nightmare.
But then I remember that I feel like this every year, and after it’s over, I’m always glad I did it. Without fail, I enjoy the students, and come away from the experience feeling as if I’d done a good thing.
It helps that I recall when I was in college and had the chance to hear a “real newspaper columnist” – whose name I’ve forgotten, but I remember he worked for the Modesto Bee. He talked to us about his climb up the career ladder to become a columnist. He read a few columns, one of which was about a house fire, and it included details about charred lace on a doll’s dress. That guy’s talk stayed with me for years as I hung onto my dream of being a newspaper columnist, until I reached my goal and did exactly that.
I’ve agreed to this job shadow gig for many years, starting back when I worked at the paper. In those early years, it was easier to have students shadow me as a reporter and columnist. The kids got to see where the newspaper was created, had a chance to check out the newsroom, take in the energy of phones ringing and people talking and the police scanner squawking. They got to descend into the bowels of the building to see the presses, and we’d end our time together in one of the small conference rooms, where we’d discuss journalism.
That scenario changed dramatically in 2007 when I left the paper and started A News Cafe.com. Suddenly, my home was my office. There were no printing presses, or a building buzzing with activity. It was pretty much just me in my house, my webtender son in the Czech Republic in his home, and some freelance writers and photographers, all of whom worked from home.
Given that, you would have thought my Rotary Job Shadow days were behind me.
But I was wrong. The first year after I left the paper and job shadow time rolled around, I heard from Gussenhoven, the job shadow committee chair, an occupational matchmaker who pairs students with community members who might fit the kids’ career curiosities.
Me: Uh, Julie, thanks for asking, but I don’t have a brick-and-mortar office. I work from home. You might want to ask a reporter from the newspaper, so the kids can see a real newspaper situation.
It’s funny, but I don’t remember her reply. I only know that she was OK with my situation. Maybe she’d already tried someone at the paper, and they’d turned her down. Either way, here I am, still doing the Rotary Job Shadow day.
So I’ll meet the students at a Starbucks, where I’ll bring my entire business in my purse: my laptop and my cell phone, which is also my camera. I’ll hear them out about why they’re interested in journalism, and probably learn as I have in some years past, that what they really want to do is be a novelist.
Back at the country club for lunch, I’ll resist feeling sorry for my job shadow kids who expressed interest in professions like mine, or things like accounting or banking, because to the casual outside observer, they’re fairly boring. I mean, if a student were to actually just hang out while a reporter did the lion’s share of her work, they’d end up spending hours watching me type, scroll through emails or talk on the phone.
With that in mind, during the lunch, I will try not to wonder what my budding young journalists are thinking as they listen to their fellow students rave and gush about their exciting mornings shadowing physicians, CHP officers, veterinarians or even a butcher, baker or beer-maker.
All I can do is do the best that I can to make my job sound as appealing and interesting as possible. I’ll show them how to upload a post or photograph on A News Cafe.com. Heck, maybe I’ll even post their photos here, and some of their words, if they want.
If all else fails, there are always frappuccinos.
Independent online journalist Doni Chamberlain founded what’s now known as anewscafe.com in 2007 with her son, Joe Domke of the Czech Republic. Prior to 2007 Chamberlain was an award-winning newspaper opinion columnist, feature and food writer recognized by the Associated Press, the California Newspaper Publishers Association and E.W. Scripps. She lives in Redding, CA.
