Deadline stress

Students David Aguilar (Salinas, CA) and Wing Cheung (New York,NY) work quickly to meet article deadlines in the newsroom. (Photo Credit: Brian Rokus '99).

By Wing Cheung (New York, NY)

It was 12:00 AM. The clicking of the keyboard keys filled the room. People scurried between the rows of tables, rushing to finalize their work and trying to account for what had been submitted.

I stared at my computer screen with sore eyes, anxious to make sense of the scrambled sentences and jumbled paragraphs that would eventually be my article. Each clause was a piece of a larger puzzle that delineated a message about one of society’s many untold stories. I grew more anxious with the passing of each minute because of the approaching deadline for the articles.

Sitting around me were my peers, who were as desperate as I was in trying to meet the deadline. I watched them work and noticed how eager they were to perfect their piece. It was then that I realized that none of us were trying to achieve the mere goal of getting our names published in a byline. We wrote our articles because we enjoyed being journalists.

While deadlines can be stressful to work with, they are a realistic element in the actual practice of journalism. This paper that we have produced has provided us with an informative experience that allows us to recognize the conditions under which professional journalists work.