Journalists I Met

I missed a lot of prompts in Writing 101. This time I'm going to write for day six prompt, "Who's the most interesting person (or people) you've met this year?"

I met some interesting journalists last year and this year. They taught many good lessons.

In 2014, there was a journalism workshop for the members of student journalism club. The speakers were two journalists.

The first journalist was a young woman. She wrote entertainment news in local newspaper. I remember she taught us how to befriend fellow journalist. She shared her experience, "There was an event attended by many journalists. I was still new and I didn't know anyone. I then told my editor about it and he said, 'You have to talk to them (other journalists). Even if you don't know them. Just approach them and ask what media they work in,' "  To be honest, I often feel awkward around people. There are many times when I attend events with people I don't know well. I will try to start conversation.

The second speaker was a journalist for online media platform. He gave us important lesson on news writing and deadline. I remember he said, "I work for online media and it means that I must write quickly. Right after an event happens, the news should be seen online." I was amazed by that considering that I often procrastinated writing article.

Also on 2014, my friend and I became representatives of our journalism club to attend a journalism gathering. Ardus. M. Sawega, a senior journalist, spoke in that gathering. He used to write article on art performance and culture. He told us that one day, he watched a performance with fellow journalist. They both were going to write it in their newspapers. Their articles were quite different since Mr. Ardus notice things that his fellow journalist didn't notice. Lesson to learn: always pay attention. 

Recently in the journalism club upgrading, a student journalist from history faculty came as a speaker and she was cool. She has written since she was in junior high school. Not only that, she has ever seen "tawuran" (student fighting) and child jail for her articles. Whoa, I haven't written article on those topics. It would be quite terrifying for me to see such things.

There was also one thing they always told us about: etiquette.