The Eagle Explains: Being a student journalist and reporting on COVID-19
I have to start this off by saying that I love The Eagle. Not only have I grown immensely as a person and as a journalist during my time here, but I’ve also met some of the best, most talented people that I’ll ever get to know. And I’m glad I get to be a part of something like this, especially at such an important moment in time. Journalism is the first rough draft of history, and all of us at The Eagle take that to heart.
But in the year and a half I’ve been on The Eagle’s staff, I’ve written almost 50 stories. Almost all of them have been about the coronavirus.
As student journalists, we live a piece of every story we report. It’s an experience you likely won’t find anywhere else in the journalism world, and one I don’t take for granted. Sometimes it can be fun, but lately, I’ve noticed how exhausting it can be. Every story we write about how the University has been dealing with the coronavirus and how students are impacted, we’re also the students who are impacted, too.
However, the journalism industry is not perfect and neither are we, as student journalists. As someone who self-identifies as a perfectionist, I have always thought that working myself far beyond my limits was normal. I’ve only recently started to realize that I’m not invincible. It’s so easy to feel alone and voiceless when your world has been reduced to the screen in front of you.
As I look back on the over 600 stories that have been reported by our staff since this time last year, I see how little I realized that these stories were affecting me, too. I had spent so much time reporting on how everyone else had been affected by all of it that I never realized how much I’ve been affected, too. It’s a lesson in what happens when you don’t take care of yourself and don’t ever stop to catch your breath.
