INGRID DOULTON | Education | Contact
There was a time when Fiona Sears thought journalism could change the world.
That time is passed.
Spending close to two years learning how to write, ask and interpret left the 21-year-old feeling weary and burned out – but with a diploma in her hand and a mortarboard photograph for Mum, Dad and Grandma Joh, her hopes in reporting the facts rekindled.
Four days after her third round interview with the French Quarter’s Pisse Monde, a local French-language subsidiary of The Advocate, the happy-go-lucky Virgo got the nod and everything in the world seemed right again, she said.
“I was inspired to become a journalist after watching brave women make the brave and right decision to say enough was enough and wicked men need to be held accountable for their actions,” she said.
“Leaving school, I thought about doing something like law or finance, or both. I could’ve just buried my head in the sand and driven a Porche Cayman. But I thought fuck it, I’ll be a reporter. And for a while, I loved it.”
That was, until earlier this week, when her boss wrote her death warrant.
“He came in and basically thought, ‘Oh, I bet Fi likes that fucking Married at First Sign of Mental Illness show. People read that shit and we need clicks so I’ll get the youngest woman in the newsroom to write recaps every fucking day because it’ll keep her busy,’ and here I am,”
“I pitched him a story this morning about the Mayor using his power to rezone semi-rural land his wife owns so it can be subdivided into quarter-acre home and land packages and he just laughed at me then said Pierre was already covering it and I shouldn’t worry – but to send Pierre all the research I’d done.”
“Like fuck I’m doing that.”
The Advocate phoned Robert Cadieux, the editor of Pisse Monde, for comment earlier this morning and he was able to explain why the things.
While he conceded that perhaps Ms Sears has a functioning brain and might not enjoy watching reality television, he said like all other newspapers, he needs to cater for an audience.
“If I could, I would have all my staff writing hard-hitting journalism, I really would,” he said.
“But the overwhelming majority of my readership doesn’t care about that kind of stuff. Advertisers don’t call us up asking to do sponsored content based around the Arab Spring or #metoo. Audiences these like having their opinions about certain people on reality television programmes reaffirmed by a reputable source of news,”
“It’s sad, I know, but life is a sea of pain and disappointment and then you die,”
“Now excuse me, I’ve just received word that one of those shotgun marriages has ended.”
More to come.
