I’m giving a midterm, mofos.
A fucking midterm. Me. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do at this point, aside from looking somewhat professorial. To me, this means looking stern and yet encouraging. It is unfortunate that I had LASIK surgery several years and no longer need my glasses, because those would have helped. If I had thought ahead, I would have gotten faux reading glasses. Cat’s eye, perhaps, on a firm silver chain.
I stumbled into this, via Crasstalk, of all places. A kind commenter noted my writing about looking for a PR as I desperately seek to flee Clusterfuck News and two am wake up calls and asked me if I’d ever considered teaching. Well, no, I hadn’t. I’d never finished my Bachelor’s degree. After twenty years in news, I really don’t need Bachelors in Journalism any longer. But her husband heads a Big Deal News Division at a Big University near me. And he needed an adjunct. And he actually talked to me. And here I am, teaching a required course in the university, which seeks to have non-journalism majors understand what is news, what goes into news, and how the media sausage factory grinds out the information they absorb every day. I am one of the assistants at lecture every week, and then I lead the discussion class two days later, trying to make them comprehend what has been thrown at them in the gigantic glass of 300 students. Most of them are freshmen. I remember how overwhelming those huge lecture halls where.
That small class was terrifying on the first day. I had my lectern. I had my chalk. I had my erasers. I had my new (tax-deductible! Cuz it’s for work!) laptop. I put on a dress. Twenty-one sets of eyes stared up at me. Like I know what the fuck I’m talking about, and waited for me to – start teaching. I felt like my first day behind the microphone, with my heart in my throat. The thing about radio is that no one sees you. They were all looking at me. Hi, I said. I’m Newsbunny.
These kids have both delighted and appalled me. Most of them didn’t know who Moamar Gadhafi is, despite a daily assignment of having to read the front page of the New York Times. One of my students actually answered a news quiz question of ‘Who is Moamar Gadhafi?” with “Someone mentioned in the New York Times.” Although this is technically correct, it is still very, very, very wrong. It was the worst answer in lecture. Two weeks later, he turned his sad ass around and gave me only correct answer in my discussion group. I wanted to hug his ass. This would have been wrong. Instead, I sent him an email telling him he was awesome. To be fair, almost all of the students in lecture gave the wrong answer. I scared the hell of out of them when I yelled at told them if the next quiz didn’t improve I would giving a damn test every week. I love the student who argues with me and makes valid points, showing me, and the class, there is always more than one angle to any story. At the end of every class, I ask if anyone has any questions about anything. My favorite smartass asked me why I wear black every day.
It is surreal to stand here, in front of the class, like I have answers, especially after spending half a career feeling sub-par because of never earning that piece of paper from a four-year institution. The irony of now helping others to earn the degree is not escaping me. I am surprising myself. I can explain the difference between libel and slander, bias and error, editorial and straight news. I can show them examples between PR and hard news. I can help them break down all the elements that go into an entertainment puff pieces. I can show them what makes it to air and what doesn’t, and why. When they tell me how journalists are heartless assholes and don’t care who they hurt in printing or broadcasting something, I can cry for them when I tell them I went through covering a nightclub fire where 100 people died, and how hard it is to separate your feelings from what must be said, and what must done, and where a light must be shone to show what happened here, so it never happens again.
Some of them I won’t be able to reach. Some of them aren’t there. Some of them will never be there. Some of them will never understand that news does affect them, that all that money that’s sucked out of their paycheck is their money, and they have a right to know exactly how it is being spent, and that includes when it’s spent on ousting a Libyan tyrant rather than lowering their tuition bills. Some of them won’t understand for another twenty years. But some of them – are starting to understand now. “I never thought of it that way,” one of them said to me the other week.
My cup ran over.
Picture: Flickr
