Advice For Young Journalists

It’s a tough gig, but it’s worth it.

About 18 months ago, I returned to Champaign, Illinois, to talk to journalism students at the University of Illinois, ostensibly to give back to the school that taught me the foundations of my profession but, much more important, as an excuse to go to an Illini basketball game. I sat in a fancy box for the game — I got to meet Kenny Battle! — and before tipoff, while I was pouring myself a glass of funded-by-your-public-education-dollars bourbon, I turned to my left and ran into, of all people, Timothy Killeen, the president of the University since 2015. He shook my hand and thanked me for returning, and I told him I was honored to meet him and that I was appreciative of all the fine work he had done, and continues to do, for my beloved alma mater.

He smiled, thanked me again and then asked me a question I’ve been a little obsessed with ever since.

“You were talking to the College of Media today, yes?” he said in his charming Welsh accent. I told him I was.

“So I have to ask,” he said, “what do you even tell those kids?”

This is, I’ll confess, not necessarily the most reassuring question to be asked by the man who is in charge of the University whose media department you have flown into town to support, and I was a bit taken aback…