Back to the lightside...

For the last four and a half years when someone has asked me what I do for a living, I would tell them, "I used to be a newspaper reporter, but now I..."

I had found that A) this would clear up a LITTLE bit of confusion when I would then attempt to explain my mashup of jobs on the business side of news radio and B) I still took pride in being a reporter, even if I wasn't anymore.

I'm happy to say, I no longer have to refer to "my former life as a newspaper reporter," for I am a reporter once again! I've accepted a full-time reporting position with C&G Newspapers, a group of weeklies based in Warren, Mich. The company is launching its 18th paper in April, for which I will be its sole reporter (more or less). I'm 98 percent excited and 2 percent nervous, but even that is mostly nervous excitement.

But I always thought I would be back. When I took a part-time office job with my current employer upon moving to Chicago, my reporter and editor friends didn't get too worried. A "transitional phase" is all it was... right? When I was offered a full-time job at the radio networks eight months later and accepted, that's when the questions and comments started to rain down upon me.

For the nearly four years since, I've heard, "When are you leaving the darkside?" and my mom would e-mail me news stories and ask, "Wouldn't you love it if that was your name on the story?" I took it all to heart. I missed it like crazy, all the while stating that I was "sleeping better at night" and happy to be reading more again, etc. Basically, some things to make me feel better for abandoning the career I had been working toward since I was 16 doing paste-up and layout at my hometown paper, the Ionia Sentinel-Standard. (Note: This means literally cutting out individual stories and sometimes paragraphs or individual words, coating them with hot wax and sticking them onto a large rectangular piece of paper to create each page of the newspaper).

You see, about two weeks after I moved to Chicago I got a call from my former editor, Clint. And I remember it was mid-afternoon. I had just gotten home from my part-time job, more or less as a secretary. He said he had good news for me: my series of stories that essentially had taken down a corrupt police department had earned a first place for investigative journalism from the Wisconsin Newspaper Association.

Most people would be elated, right? Holy crap! A first place! At the age of 25! How many newspaper vets did I beat out for this honor!?!?

Instead, I cried. I was so upset. How in the world had I left this business, which, for nearly 10 years, I was convinced I was "meant" to do. And now I was a secretary 20 hours a week. What the hell was I doing???

Well, it didn't take long to calm down and at least try to appreciate this accomplishment in my career, which I'm happy to say is apparently back on track. Now I have to get over feeling silly about hanging a wooden Wisconsin-shaped award in my new cubicle. Actually, I don't know if I'm ready for that just yet. For now it may have to stay at the home office...