Being a reporter is not easy. I experienced the biggest mistake in my journalism career this week and let me tell you: I felt embarrassed.
The University of Florida is celebrating 60 years of desegregation, and I was assigned to cover an event in the College of Law honoring George Starke Jr., the first African-American UF student. Everything was going well: I learned how to use a very unique recorder, I got some interviews, pictures and took plenty of notes. I was happy. It was my first time doing something like this knowing that it would get published for sure. I even recorded a wrap for an audio piece to go along with the article. I did everything I could to finish the story on time. Two editors. One reporter. One publishable story. And then, disaster. While editing, my editor noticed that I misspelled a name. Now, the worst part was that I had the name written down correctly in my notes. Apparently, I was inattentive, something that a good journalist should never be, especially when it comes to names. After promising myself I would never commit such error again, I suddenly committed another one, but this time, with the audio piece. I was so concerned with how my accent would appear in my audio piece that, while editing some recordings, I gave credit of someone´s words to someone else. And it got published. Two hours later I received another phone call related to my mistake. WUFT was able to remove the audio from my story, but it was late. When published, who knows how many people listened to it? It was the most embarrassing moment of my journalistic career. How could I, someone who thinks accuracy and truth is everything in a story, produced fake news and didn´t even noticed? Although fixed, the story I was so excited about producing ended up being my worst piece. Not because of the content. But because of my lack of professionalism. “It was a mistake. It´s OK. You should learn from it and move on.” I´m sure everyone heard this phrase at least once in their lives, and I know that if I have decided to tell my friends and family about what happened to my story, they would say the same thing. It´s hard for people who are not familiarized with a journalism environment to understand what does it mean to commit such mistakes. How bad it can hurt your career as a role. While in my work break, I reflected in everything that happened and wondered how I can stop committing such mistakes. It was unacceptable what I did, and I´m sure it won´t happen again. Wondering what is the story I´m referring to? Check it out: https://giovannakubota.weebly.com/desegregation.html
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AuthorGiovanna Kubota is a 22-year-old Brazilian pursuing a master's degree in Communication at the University of Central Florida. |