This past Thursday, my new team members and I all went out for lunch. (Sushi buffet. If you know me, you know I was pretty stoked about that. And it was delicious.) I’d already met each of them in my initial orientation, but this was an opportunity to get to know them better now that we’ll be working more closely together.
On our drive back to the office, my new manager asked me a bit about my background, what jobs I’d had before this, etc. I started to explain my history of jumping from magazine internship to online reporting to editing newspapers. Then she asked:
“So did you purposely leave journalism?”
And that struck a deep, deep chord, man. I fumbled with my answer a bit, saying I wanted to do something with my career that was a little more reliable and paid better, while still allowing me to write and also bring me into a cause I’m passionate about (helping the cute and fuzzies of the world). It’s the explanation I typically give people who ask why I made this particular career move. It may even be the explanation I gave in the job interview. And yes, it’s the explanation I tell myself when I wonder and hope that I made the right move. (I have very limited experience with marketing, after all.) But did I purposely leave journalism … that question stuck with me throughout the rest of the day. And I’m clearly still thinking about it, so I came here to hash it out.
Have I left journalism? Continue reading “On “leaving” journalism.”