In about two or so weeks, I’ll be coming back to Langara for my second and (hopefully) final year in the school’s journalism program. In which, by design, I should be a budding journalism with the integrity of an ox and the work ethic of an… ox?

It’s funny to say that I’ll be coming back, because in truth I’ve never really left the building. As most of my other classmates have been pursuing a summer of work/leisure, I’ve been biding my time. Left to my own devices using the school’s devices, to endeavour in what most people would argue is a ‘startup’…

…When I’m calling it “for fun-sies”. 

I’ve mentioned and promoted it on this blog before, NewsFriends is a podcast that’s all about conversing the news stories of the week. The subject matter was quite general because news is news. It was either interesting, serious or just a story about shit.

The whole point, mind you I’m speaking for myself here, was to talk about news in a way that should hopefully be engaging and entertaining to anyone that was either never interesting in current events all that much, or would like to stories in a more personable matter.

To put it frankly, I don’t care about demographics, I would just want it to be accessible.

In doing this, there’s been a small handful of classmates that were on board, and as of this blog post there’s been 17 episodes filling out our summer (one of which I’ve had nothing to do with ). 

From the beginning you can definitely tell we’re just funning around. A clear lack of professionalism as we bumble and laugh our way through story after next, having discussion and coming up with skits, as a way to entertain ourselves to fill out an hour.

But then, there was the whole idea of the video content which just started as a joke to thank pot-heads for coming out to Godfrey’s birthday. [Which was discussed on a podcast that we didn’t even officially put up for download (unless you want to support our patreon, which will be a whole other thing somewhere in the future).]

The reception for video was surprisingly well received from friends, so we decided it should be a regular thing (once a week at best!)

Within the first month, I hadn’t realized how big of a project it was becoming for me. Hosting and editing the podcast, as well as Shooting, editing and sometimes reporting in videos. I’ve managed to accidentally put myself to work.

Truly a happy accident. I don’t know if it’s the nature of the content or the fact that I’ve put myself into such a thankless role, but I’ve been able to get actual gigs in the process.

Even still, I’ve been able to do this thing with some amazingly talented people. Both fellow classmates, and others outside of our class that want to be just as engaged in what we do. I like working with them all, I like seeing where they want to take themselves, and I’m pretty much guaranteed to help them out any step of the way.

That kind of stuff is exciting to me, I still have a year yet to explore exactly where I would fit in the journalism industry. I think what I do in NewsFriends is a clear indication of where I’d want to go, both in content and work ethic. If we’re having a conversation about the expansion and evolution of what journalism should be, I don’t think there are too many wrong answers.

But with the Next year of school on the horizon, I’m looking forward to building onto that foundation So I can get out there and continue to be just as confident in my abilities as I am now.