I am not afraid to ask for help.

Well, that’s not entirely true, but I am certainly not afraid to ask for help when it comes to journalism. Especially when there are so many experts that predate my entrance into this field.

Now, my degree is in communication, not psychology, but I understand the internal strife that comes with not understanding an issue or knowing how to proceed with an idea. The thought of asking for help can be paralyzing. ‘I don’t want to need help – I want to understand how to tackle this issue on my own, dangit.’

It’s cool to have an ego, but maybe those of us who are still a few years out of the proverbial gate should take pause.

When I brought up the idea of this blog post to Jim Robertson, the managing editor of the newspaper I work at, the Columbia Daily Tribune, he nailed it: “It’s always helpful for experience to speak to inexperience.”

That’s so simple when you read it, but it isn’t as easy when you are trying to live it.

“I’ve seen ego prevent people from using resources that are right in front of them,” he told me. What an unfortunate reality of the young journalist’s ego. (I can say that – I’m 22.)

For the sake of honesty, I recently stumbled across a project that was an undertaking to say the absolute least. It’s the kind of project that would really benefit from the assistance of a person who specializes in data.

We produce one heck of a newspaper, but the Tribune is still relatively small and family owned. We unfortunately don’t have a data person on staff. But hey, don’t I pay dues to be part of a professional organization that links me to thousands of people in my shoes across the country? Yes, yes I do.

I reached out to a friend in the Society of Professional Journalists who immediately had a few names of data folks at other outlets who might be able to guide me through my project.

It’s not just data. We have a wealth of talent in SPJ of people to reach out to between freelance experts to record requests gurus. Join me in putting the determined-newcomer ego on the backburner. It’s time to tap into the mine that is our seasoned colleagues’ experiences.

Ashley Jost is the higher education reporter for the Columbia Daily Tribune in Columbia, Missouri. She is a Truman State University alumna and a die-hard fan of the St. Louis Cardinals.

This entry was posted by SPJ on Wednesday, November 5th, 2014 at 5:35 pm and is filed under Careers, Generation J. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.