In order to write like a pro, you need to be taught by the best. Here at JCU, we’re lucky to have a journalism professor that has worked in both Canada and the United States. Dr. Carrie Buchanan is a professor in the Communications department, and she usually teaches journalism, communications and the first amendment (a class about first amendment law), and health/science writing. She is a fantastic professor that does a wonderful job of encouraging her students, and she always wants everyone to succeed.
Dr. Buchanan started her career as a journalist in the late 1970s, a time when women in journalism were looked down upon. In fact, Dr. Buchanan said that women were only assigned “fluff” pieces like current events. She wanted to write the hard news, like investigative stories or stories about politics or crimes. In fact, in order to support a family as a journalist, Dr. Buchanan explained that it’s really a must to write the front-page stories and to make the wages of a man.
She was eventually able to work her way up to working for a weekly newspaper in Montreal after her drive and talent were noticed in the stories she got on the front page. Shortly after getting the job at the Montreal paper, it folded. Dr. Buchanan had a child, and the family moved to Ottawa.
Shortly after moving to Ottawa, Dr. Buchanan was hired as a “stringer” at a local paper, for which she wrote three to five stories per week. It was the perfect job for her to have with a small child. She was then offered a full-time position, but she hesitated due to the demands of raising a family. Just as she decided to take the job, the paper folded. Dr. Buchanan then decided to leave the journalism profession.
Fast forward 10 years. Dr. Buchanan was depressed that she was out of the journalism industry, and she realized that the world would always have a need for journalists. Therefore, she decided to go back to school and get a master’s degree in journalism. From there, she thought that she could easily get a job doing beat reporting on health or science topics (her undergraduate degree was in biology and psychology), but she underestimated how difficult it was to get a job.
Upon returning to the journalism world in 1988, she had to start at the bottom as a copy person, where she often had to run errands and get coffee. Her key to success is an important lesson that we could all take to heart: she dressed for the position she wanted, not the position she had. Every day, she went to work dressed as though they could send her to parliament without an issue. When the editorial staff promoted a man with less seniority to a reporting job before her, Dr. Buchanan got upset and came to work the next day in jeans and a sweatshirt.
“The managing editor noticed immediately,” she said, “and he was shocked that I was still a copy person! He thought they’d already made me a reporter, and they promoted me right away!”
Finally, Dr. Buchanan got the big stories she wanted. Because of her expertise, “it was obvious that I would be covering hard news. I had knowledge of Quebec and was able to speak French, two important things for a reporter in that area,” she said.
Eventually, Dr. Buchanan left reporting and the newspaper industry to teach journalism. She started at Carlton University in Canada, and taught there for five years before moving to Cleveland in 2006, just as she was finishing her doctorate degree.
Dr. Buchanan began teaching here at JCU five years ago in 2009 and really enjoys it. She says that her favorite part of JCU is “the values. People have good values here. Also, the sense of social justice is fantastic. It’s always been important to me.”
She was also very pleased to be a campus celebrity, saying “I’m just astonished that people would consider me a celebrity! I even put on lipstick for the interview!”
In terms of the future of journalism, Dr. Buchanan was very optimistic. While saying that she understood how difficult it is to get a job in the field now, she added, “I have a lot of hope for journalism. While newspapers may not be around forever, they will change. They have to. They’re the best news organizations and the teamwork is amazing.”