Let me just say that life is a blessing, first and foremost.
Someone once told me that journalists are the people whose lives are more interesting — captivating, fascinating, epochally [almost] unbelievable sometime — than the people they write about. I can now say that that is true.
People always tell me that I should write a book about the many episodes, if you will, of my life. I say, ‘Maybe Jason will make a movie someday about it.’
I look at my editors, the fellow communications major around me at school, the leading journalists and communicators of today’s media (Oprah Winfrey, Cathy Hughes, Phillip Dixon, and, although figuratively underdressed, DeNeen Brown of the Washington Post), and even though I may not know them intimately, I have seen and looked into their eyes; and, looking at them, you see the wear and tear, the overcomings and the humility they’ve endured, and you can clearly see it’s made them better people, if anything.
Oprah’s life before television was violent, sexual and self-esteemless. She was poor, but smart. She managed to get through.
Once Cathy Hughes marriage eventually ended with Dewey, yes, she bought her husband’s share in WHUR, but she had to give up her own place and live at the station for a while just to get her financials in order.
It may not seem that big, but it opens doors for understanding. These people aim to help people and tend to be very understanding, very privy on how to teach younger journalists that the field of journalism is not as it appears to be on the outside…create an understanding in young journalists.
Journalists are people first. Then writers.
