The serendipity
of journalism
It was my junior year of high school. Prom was just around the corner, and it was time to narrow down the feature article assignments for the April issue of The Wingspan. The students on the Centennial High School newspaper staff were quickly separating into two camps: the ones who signed up for journalism because it looks good on a college application and the ones who were committed to addressing the topics of the times, regardless of the principal’s endorsement. I fell in with the latter, smaller group.
My article about teen pregnancy and birth control was met with raised eyebrows and apologetic glances from our faculty adviser. After a conference with the principal, our feature topic underwent some revision, and while some articles were published, others were censored. Frustrated, I joined up with a few rebellious friends -- some on the staff, some not -- who saw this as an opportunity to write about what we considered a violation of our First Amendment rights. During a private meeting after school, we drafted a pamphlet-sized expose on the principal’s violation of our rights and printed a hundred or so photocopies at the local 7-Eleven for distribution the following Friday.
Did our daring expose make the evening news? No. Nor did our underground newspaper’s distribution site, just off school grounds, make us as untouchable as we had hoped. Luckily, our act of self-expression did not involve any damage to school property, libel or slander, so the administration was forgiving and let those of us who opted out of a byline go without so much as a phone call home.
Did the whole experience shape my beliefs and career decisions? Absolutely. Clearly, this meant I was destined to work for a real newspaper someday. I mean, The Baltimore Sun had already published my letter to the editor about the repressive youth curfew that Del. Frank S. Turner was proposing (that letter was immediately framed by my parents). Chances are, the editors already had their eye on me, eagerly awaiting the day I finished college and was ready to report, right?
Not exactly.
The years when I was in school and entering the ‘‘job market’’ weren’t exactly the most profitable for the newspaper industry, or any other print medium for that matter. The print edition of The Baltimore Sun was slimming down, as was the staff. The chances of them taking on an inexperienced, aspiring journalist educated in literature and fiction writing were even slimmer. But, if I had learned anything from all the journalists who had captivated me over the years, it was that there is more than one way into a building.
My way in was through classified advertising. Hours upon hours of inputting car, puppy and real-estate ads into the layout system were broken up by the occasional heart-rending conversations about death notices and obituaries with funeral home directors or surviving family members. On a really good day, I’d catch a fun typo about a 1989 Winnebagel and learn that all four pit bull puppies had been adopted so the ad need not appear the rest of the week.
Then it happened. I learned about the 4 p.m. front-page meetings that had been going on, unbeknown to me, every single day on the most interesting floor just below advertising, the newsroom, and if I ever ‘‘wanted to sit in on one of them, it could be arranged.’’
Photo by Elizabeth Malby
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