When I first came to work at the St. Paul Journal, I was a young journalist, not necessarily looking to make my mark on the world, but more interested at that time to start earning some money. I was thrilled to be out of the classroom and have a real job doing something I loved. It was the early 80s, I was in my early 20s and life was cool.
For the most part, I stumbled into the career of journalism. I left high school really without a clue as to what I wanted to do. I went to France for a while, worked as a nanny and hung out with a group of international, like-minded, un-focused people. Somebody mentioned they were studying journalism in Chicago and it struck a chord with me. Physics was never my thing in high school, but I was able to cruise through English and Social Studies without too much effort. After all, journalism - how hard could that be?
For 10 years, I plied my trade at the St. Paul Journal, eventually working my way into the editor’s chair. I used to say, I got paid for asking the questions that everyone else wanted to ask. It was great. I loved it. Then, I bailed.
The second time I came to work at the St. Paul Journal, I was married with two children. It was the year after the Millennium. The world was still standing. I was in my late 30s and life was still cool. After all, I was now in the publisher’s chair and was back doing something I loved.
Certainly, there had been some changes in the six years I’d been gone - new software programs, digital cameras, Internet access but no Facebook, not immediately anyway. I put all my energies into publishing newspapers at a time when the industry was changing drastically. In addition, to our print products, we were juggling websites, and then came Facebook and Twitter. Almost overnight, it seemed, journalists had to be multi-taskers to the nth degree – they had to write, take pictures, shoot video, layout print pages, contribute to web pages, stay on top of Facebook posts, and, yes, tweet. I was pretty glad to be just the publisher. Then, 13 years later, I bailed again.
Which bring us to today, three and half years later, and I’m back at the St. Paul Journal and in the publisher’s chair again. It’s 2017, I am in my early … well never mind, you do the math, and life continues to be cool, rad or whatever it is the millennials are saying these days. Third time’s a charm, so it is said.
Response to my return has been, shall we say, varied.
“It’s like you’ve been in a coma and just woke up,” one newspaper colleague said. Another simply said, “Sucker!” My favourite, however, is, “You’ve been missed.”
I believe I’ve come full circle, returning to something near and dear to my heart, at a time when the newspaper industry continues to face challenging times.
This I know to be true, that amid the flotsam and jetsam of the online world, credible journalism is as important and essential today as it ever was. Let us not forget, the newspaper is the original social medium – connecting people with each other, their communities and the world around them.
