Well that is it. Yesterday I was Jean Adams from The Times. On Monday I will be Jean Adams from Newcastle University again. No more struggles with incomprehensible geology research reports, no more flicking through the paper to see if my story made it.
The Times offered some temporary work next week. They were willing to pay £70 a day. I’m not sure how that compares to what I get paid by the university, but five weeks of paid leave is generous enough. I think I probably need to go back and build up a bit more good will before I try for another little adventure.
It has been frustrating (all those stories written and not printed), boring (remember the pictures?), exciting (my name in The Times), enlightening (press conferences with scientists who did and didn’t know how to sell their story to the papers), and entertaining (the prolonged discussion in the press room about whether the Pope thinks aliens could go to heaven).
I will miss the pace of the work, the challenge of getting to grips with something new every day, the struggle to try harder and learn more in the hope that maybe this time my work will make the grade. In many ways it’s like academia – you read, you listen to people, you question, you try to think of a new angle, you write, you submit your work, sometimes you hit the jackpot, mostly you get rejected. But the cycle is so much quicker, the gratification so much faster, and the opportunity to brood over the rejection so much less that I feel it could be a good sidestep. Maybe just for a year or two until I got bored with it too. But I would be willing to give it a go.
If you see a job for a rookie reporter, let me know.
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