The only huge news I have is that my face was on the “front page” of GlobeandMail.com on Friday! And not for some random reason, but because I wrote something that The Globe and Mail published on their GlobeCampus site. That’s huge, right?

TalentEgg recently partnered with GlobeCampus for a blog/column called From Class to Career. Lauren’s article went up early last week and mine, “It’s been two months since graduating … now what?”

Needless to say, it’s a very exciting (or eggciting as Lauren would say) time for TalentEgg and for me personally/professionally. Already this year I’ve been published in the National Post multiple times and now something I wrote was featured on the Globe and Mail’s homepage. Two national newspapers in the span of a few months. Not bad!

You don’t have to be hired by a media giant to be published by one!

Yet, as a journalist, it’s a constant battle. Because we consume so much information on a daily basis, we probably have opinions on many more topics than the average person does. And since we’re natural communicators, we’re prone to spewing out our thoughts (on paper or otherwise) at any given time.

It’s something that is completely in conflict with the work we do, however.

Upon doing research on the very broad topic of rodents in Toronto earlier this week, I came across some information that wasn’t secret, but it hadn’t been published yet. Like a good little intern, I jumped on it, dug some more and made a real breaking news story out of it.

Rodent infestations continue to bedevil Chinatown and Kensington Market, with health authorities ordering five recent business closures in the span of a few blocks.

I was also lucky enough to have the chance to turn it into a larger, issue-based feature story the next day.

More than a third of the city’s 56 closures in the past year have taken place in this area, with most inspection records noting rodent or insect infestations, or both.

However, as I interviewed Toronto city councillor Adam Vaughan about the issue and some of the things he’s been doing to make those neighbourhoods, which are in his ward, he raised a very complicated, loaded issue: bias in the media.

Now, he never said, “You’re a racist.” It was never that direct. But as a member of the media breaking and covering a story, I was clearly among those who he thinks approach the issue with a “tinge of racism.”

This has the tinge of racism to it and it’s unacceptable.

At first, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Am I being racist for covering this story? I thought. At first I panicked a little because, you know, I’m white. I don’t know what it’s like to be not white. I’ve never lived in a foreign culture. I’ve never been a poor immigrant struggling to make it in a new country.

But then I looked at how I drew my conclusions about this story. To start, I used real data: the City of Toronto’s DineSafe website has inspection records for every restaurant in the city.

Based on my knowledge of city street names, I could already tell many of them were in the Chinatown/Kensington Market area and the rest were scattered throughout the city.

But I wanted to be sure, so I created a Google Map which showed the location of every food premises which had been closed in the past year. My assumption was correct and clearly illustrated on the map; there was a high concentration of closures within those side-by-side neighbourhoods.

I also spoke to leaders in both of the communities, giving them the opportunity to tell their side of the story:

Barbara Kwan, vice-chair of the Chinatown BIA, said business owners in the neighbourhood are doing everything they can to combat the problem.
…
Kensington Market Action Committee chairman Chris Devita agreed but said many local residents and business owners are not doing anything to eliminate pests.

The only thing I can’t account for is widespread systemic racism.

It’s entirely possible that the city’s public health inspectors target this area more than others and hold business owners there to a higher standard than others because of their race.

And it’s definitely true that many new immigrants, people of colour and non-English speakers face extremely challenging societal barriers for a number of reasons, only one of which is racism.

While I’m aware of those issues, they’re not something I could tackle in this article — and they’re issues that, perhaps, no journalist could hope to tackle in any news article.

The easiest question I can ask myself, as a journalist, is: Would I still cover this story if one third of the city’s closures had occurred in another neighbourhood, in hoity-toity Yorkville, or the artsy-fartsy Beaches, or Little Italy, or the Church-Wellesley Village, etc.?

The answer is yes, I would.

I would cover the story if it could be found in any of those neighbourhoods, or any other community, because not only is it my responsibility as a journalist, it’s also what I would expect as a consumer who frequents restaurants in this city and doesn’t check the DineSafe inspection history of each one before I go.

Could I have done more to acknowledge my biases in this case? How do you acknowledge your own biases in your work life?

Although I tend to be a little too modest in person, I’m more than happy to receive praise from them online. What I hate, however, are the questions about my post-graduation job.

In less than a month, I will be finished my four years as an undergrad. As I mentioned last week, I’ve already lined up a post-grad job at TalentEgg.ca as the editor of its new online career magazine, the TalentEgg Career Incubator.

I’ve been working part-time from on that project for a few weeks now and I absolutely love it and I can’t wait to devote to it the time and energy it deserves and needs to really get off the ground.

Being an intern takes up most of my day right now and although I love many aspects of journalism, there are times when I truly hate being a reporter. I hate it the most when I have to be aggressive and part of The Pack.

The Pack is a group of three or more reporters crowded around an interview source in a public place, like a political office, a court house or an event. We have to chase people down who often don’t want to say anything to the media and who are probably intimidated by all of us shoving microphones and voice recorders in their face.

I had to do it on Thursday while covering a court appearance by two local businessmen accused of murdering one of the men’s uncles, and again on Monday when I was shipped up to Vaughan to cover a closed-door meeting at city hall. Both stories were short and neither contained much news, but they were the two most stressful stories of any I’ve written since I started at the National Post.

Now, I’ve known I didn’t like this type of reporting since Day One, but I’ve had to suck it up to get through journalism school in one piece.

Meanwhile, I can’t wait to work on the Incubator when I get home each night and I really enjoy doing it. But sitting at my computer doesn’t make for very good stories to tell family and friends.

So, inevitably, I get asked the big question by well-meaning friends and relatives: Do you think the National Post will hire you when your internship is finished?

Well, no, I say. The newspaper industry is, for the most part, cutting jobs, not creating them. And the company which owns the National Post (and most of the large media outlets in Canada), Canwest, is in financial trouble.

As much as I love having my work published for purely narcissistic reasons, I’m graduating at possibly the worst time ever for journalists. Almost every seasoned journalist I’ve talked to since I started at the Post is watching their back, and for good reason.

Besides, I already have a job. I don’t know if I could turn TalentEgg away if something like a reporting job at the Post came knocking. And, if I did, it wouldn’t be for the right reason.

That reason would be that I feel pressure to have what the middle-aged (or older) people who are extremely interested in my life consider a “real” job. Many of them don’t even understand what email is. When I try to explain what TalentEgg is and what I do at the Incubator, they just don’t get it.

And I think some of them would rather see me choose a job in a dying, somewhat backward industry which they can identify with than a role at an online company. They don’t say it, but I can see it in their eyes and body language as we go through the conversation.

I have no plans to ignore my own feelings and desires, but it’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about since last week. And it’s something I’ll have to come to terms with.

Have any of you chosen something your family or friends don’t consider to be a “real” job? Would you?

In some ways, it’s exactly what I expected, but mostly it’s not what I expected at all.

For most of the day (until it gets closer to deadline), the news room is almost as quiet as a library. Most people just mind their own business and do their own thing.

I was introduced to a dozen or so people, but I couldn’t tell you what most of their names are.

Except for the two other interns on either side of me, I have no idea what anyone else is working on. I catch snippets from other reporters’ interviews if they’re sitting near me and talking loudly, but mostly everything in the paper the next day is a complete surprise.

The majority of the people who work there are men, and almost everyone is white.

And interns are definitely not coddled. I think I’m already trying my editor’s patience with how much I communicate with him (especially near deadline).

Tomorrow, my first article — Signs of life for Hollywood North: ‘Toronto is back on the radar’ — will be published in the Toronto edition of the paper.

Although I did work really hard on the story, I was kind of surprised at how easy it was to put together. After all, I didn’t think in my first week I would be interviewing Mayor David Miller, producer Ivan Reitman or the men who financed and run Filmport, among others.

Having a large publication like the Post behind my name when I try to set up interviews has given me a greater confidence. I know my own skills are strong enough to get things done, but it feels so nice to not have to say “journalism student” or “reporter at [a publication you’ve never heard of].”

It’s not a family feeling like we had at The Ryersonian, but I can already tell I’m going to get a lot out of it — the really nice clippings are just a bonus.

My six weeks as news editor and production manager of The Ryersonian finished Wednesday. We went out to the pub as a group after deadline on Tuesday night and our professor paid for the food and drinks.

It’s incredible what you don’t know about people, especially authority figures, until you share a pitcher of beer with them.

And after we delivered the last newspapers around campus on Wednesday morning as a group, the five of us went for breakfast at a greasy spoon nearby.

I’ve hated working in groups my entire academic career. At least one person (usually me) is taken advantage of and gets stuck with most, if not all, of the work once the others realize he or she will work hard enough to get a good mark whether they help or not. I’ve had dozens of terrible group experiences.

But this group was incredible and we knew it would be before we even started working together.

Sure, it was stressful sometimes and we were short with each other once in a while as the 5 p.m. deadline crept up every Tuesday, but we tried not to take ourselves too seriously while at the same time giving one another the mutual respect we all deserved.

After spending at least five or six days a week with these people, I now feel naked without them. Three of the others are staying in Toronto for their internships, like me, but my closest friend left for Vancouver on Saturday morning.

We became even closer while on the masthead and it feels strange that I can’t call her up right now to chat about something, or nothing. We lived a few blocks away from each other and we saw or spoke to each other almost every day.

I did her highlights in the bathroom of her boyfriend’s apartment (she moved out of hers during Reading Week) and we tried to chat like normal. We acted like it wasn’t a big deal that we wouldn’t see each other for the next two months.

The goodbye was sad and I rushed it so I wouldn’t cry. I sent her a text message later to tell her how much I would miss her, but that I hoped she had a great experience. (How Gen Y am I?)

I’ve spent the days since then working on the new project I mentioned in my last post. We officially launched it today.

The TalentEgg Career Incubator is an online career magazine for Canadian post-secondary students and recent graduates, and an extension of the main TalentEgg.ca website. I’m the editor.

I’m still working on putting together a larger writing team (if anyone is interested in writing for us, please let me know) and it’s a bit of a work in progress, but we’re so excited about it and so looking forward to turning it into an invaluable resource for Canadian students and recent graduates, especially considering the current economic climate.

I’m having so much fun being part of the TalentEgg team again and working with the really bright, ambitious students and recent grads who have volunteered to contribute content. Lauren and I are also working on putting together some fun (but also purposeful) group activities for the team once it grows a bit.

And, of course, my personal life is extremely tumultuous at the moment as well. I won’t go into details, but my life will be probably changing a lot very soon. It’s sad, but it’s something which needs to be done if I’m going to start my life on the right foot.

I’m also starting my internship at the National Post tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. The editor I’m working with told me to show up with “ideas and enthusiasm,” and to be honest, I’m a little short on both at the moment. I’m so nervous and I’m still not sure if it was the right choice for me, but it’s too late to go back now. I just hope I can do an amazing job there and leave feeling good about my work.

I suppose I’m just a worry wart. I love change when it comes, but until it actually arrives and I’m certain about what’s happening, all I can do is worry, worry and worry some more.