Something big is about to happen
It’s not easy to get started in a journalism career. Kate Thomas reflects on the mentor who “introduced me to the world of journalism as if it were a home and I was allowed to take up residence”.
It’s 9am on a Wednesday in October. My heart is pumping, stomach churning, mouth dry from a lack of saliva: all the usual symptoms that something big is about to happen.
I’m staring at the computer screen, watching the loading wheel slowly build into my reflection, and whispering to myself “please don’t be sick, that won’t be a great first impression.” I was preparing to meet my Walkley mentor, Helen Sullivan.
Only a few days earlier I learnt that Helen, an international news reporter and liveblogger for Guardian Australia’s foreign desk and experienced freelancer, had agreed to be my mentor. I read that email from the Walkleys several times trying to perform the scientific act of diffusion between its contents and my new absurd reality: Is this actually happening?
Journalism has always been part of my way of life. Weekend papers lined our family dining table, reluctantly taking on a secondary role as a tablecloth while we read over long lunches. Watching Alan Kohler’s latest reports was (and still is) a favourite family pastime. And prime time news was the soundtrack to my childhood, a close second to Elton John and Dionne Warwick.
It was such a part of my life that I decided to study journalism at university, hoping dreamily to become the next Annabel Crabb. I’d seen the movies, His Girl Friday, All the President’s Men, Bridget Jones’s Diary, and thought that it was meant to be.
That was until graduation came and went, and finding work in journalism was like trying to climb a whole new mountain. I found myself having those fresh-from-university doubts, and was worried that I wasn’t cut out for it. So when the opportunity to work as a communications producer came, I took it to start my journey while also still inspired by the hope of one day having an article published in one of those papers that lined our dining table.
From a young age, I always wanted to be a journalist. I liked the idea of being able to make a difference, to use words and meet new people everyday. No other career seemed to click as easily, or naturally. But I hadn’t seen a journalist like me on television or in print.
Being born with a disability and growing up on a farm teaches you things that really form your character. In our small community, I was able to meet a whole spectrum of people, listen to them and learn about their different experiences.
People have made a deep impression on me, and have instilled in me the desire to share the raw experiences of everybody in society. To put people at the centre of a story, and give people the opportunity to tell their own stories, especially those that often go unheard.
But being curious about people is not much to hang a career on. And when you’re not quick, practiced, or confident, the world of journalism can be a struggle.
So that’s how I found myself sitting in front of the computer and staring at my reflection: a Walkley mentee. I gave myself a quick, and possibly unhelpful, pep talk: “Act natural and whatever you do, don’t muck this up.”
Soon, Helen appeared on screen. She had a huge grin and a wide-eyed warmth about her, expressing the same hilarious and sharply clever composure that she does in her fortnightly The Nature of… column.
She began the conversation and eased my symptoms with one simple line, “You can ask me anything. There’s a lot of hidden things about journalism that shouldn’t be.”
It has now been eleven months, and Helen has taught me what it’s like to work with editors, how to pitch stories and especially not to imagine editors passing my pitch around the newsroom laughing at it — she can sense a new journalist’s fears.
Helen carefully introduced me to the world of journalism as if it were a home and I was allowed to take up residence. Encouraging me to let rip on my long held ambitions by helping me get my first piece in Guardian Australia, that electric feeling is like nothing else.
Journalism is a confidence game, and Helen has been my biggest champion. But most of all, Helen has made me feel like I have permission to be a journalist.
Kate Thomas is a copywriter at Hireup and freelance journalist based on her family farm in the Great Western Plains. She has written for Guardian Australia about swimming for the first time in 25 years and about her mum’s knack for making clothes; for the ABC about a Year 12 student making her Paralympic debut and about rural suicide; and for Twenty Something Humans about being twenty something. She tweets at @saidkatethomas.
Thank you to our 2020 Mentorship program supporters: The Sidney Myer Fund and the Dennoch Fund, a sub-fund of the Australian Communities Foundation.
The Walkley Mentorship Program supports journalists by providing an opportunity to develop their skills, build their networks, and learn from those who have walked the path before them. Applications are open now, closing on October 1, 2021. The program is open to journalists across the industry and to all ages and levels of experience.
Thanks to our 2021 Mentorship program support partners: The Dennoch Fund, a sub-fund of the Australian Communities Foundation, and the Hantomeli Foundation.
