Sick Day

Please pardon this short blog, it was written between throwing up, being curled in a ball and trying to sleep…I appear to have food poisoning or the 24 hour flu or some such nonsense…greeeat.

However it has not been a total waste because while lying in my bed in one of those oddly comfortable positions one tends to find when fighting nausea, something occurred to me. Journalism never gets sick.

Stay with me on this one.

As Journalists we have to sleep, as I’ve pointed out before, we’re human beings. We also have to take time to eat, shower and, as students, go to school. But Journalism doesn’t have to do any of that. News is happening all the time – and it does not get sick.

So here I sit, all icky feeling and everything in the world is still just carrying on, someone still needs to put out the news…if I were an editor of a big publication that operates on a strict deadline I could never just say “Hey guys pardon me but I’m vomiting tonight – no paper tomorrow.” It’s incredibly upsetting.

There is one comforting factor however; we’ve got back up in the form of other journalists to catch us when we get sick. Journalism is so much bigger than any one journalist; it takes all of us to keep it going…and even more of us to keep it moving forward. I may be curled up in bed, but my colleagues around the world are still working hard. It’s so important for journalists to work as a community in pursuing the truth. Otherwise we’ve got a David v. Goliath crisis without the happy ending…

Journalism v. Heather = not a pretty sight.
Journalism v. Heather and the rest of the journalists in the world = a fair fight…and one well worth undertaking.

So I guess thanks to my fellow journalists, we’re doing quite well I’d say!