Lorena's Story, Part II

In Part 1, young journalist Lorena makes an error no editor can forgive ...

It didn’t take long to figure out what happened. Or for the critics to pounce. Lorena looked at side-by-side photos of the man she interviewed, and the man who appeared in her story. They were different people. She could not speak.

“Well?” It was the managing editor, top dog in the newsroom. He stood and sighed. He looked to his deputy. He rubbed his temples and was about to speak again when she said, “I’m so sorry; I mixed them up.”

An apology and correction went out immediately. No one took notice. All anyone cared about was that the top paper in town didn’t know one state senator from another. One critic tweeted: “a horrifically stupid error.”

“It was irresistible. Surreal and humiliating,” Lorena says today. “If it had happened to anyone else, I feel I would have made fun too. It goes with the territory. Not that it wasn’t painful to see my ignorance being lampooned online. There were a few supportive emails from journalists I didn’t know.”

Support from the bosses was harder to find. It didn’t matter how bad she felt, how overworked she might have been, or what steps she pledged to take to avoid another misfire. Not that she expected sympathy. “Make a mistake as a journalist and the spotlight’s on you. Our profession is based on accuracy,” she says.

Management yanked her off the street, assigned her to do research for other reporters, and wouldn’t say how long she’d be banished from the front lines. “They benched me. I had a tense conversation with the managing editor. He made it clear that what I had done was embarrassing for the company. I felt like such a failure. I was thankful to still have a job.”

The story ends where this piece began, with a discussion about dialogue. Lorena is like the author struggling with how to move his story forward. Her conversation is not with imaginary characters, but with herself. Some nights are still hard, even though several years have passed. She has relived the moment when she hit “publish” thousands of times. Had she not rushed and been more present, it might not have happened.

Lorena left after it became clear the editors would not relent. She would never again be permitted to report for the newspaper. As time passed, she realized she could not control what actions others took. All she could control was how she reacted.

“I had to learn I wasn’t a failure. You can make mistakes, but you have to learn from them. After a while, I became even more determined to succeed,” she says. “I go over what happened that day, what caused the mistake. You have to be careful not to lie to yourself. You have to figure it out and take that mindset into every story you do in the future.”

Lorena rebooted her career by doing freelance movie reviews and other spot assignments wherever she could find them. “It was quit or learn,” she says. “I wrote as much as I could because it’s what I love to do. I’ve wanted to be a reporter since I was in third grade. I realized at twenty-five I couldn’t just wave the white flag and give up.”

Other options are now on the table, including a return to academia, a different major, and a break from journalism. She, like so many who have come before and who will follow after, is striving mightily to prove Henry Ford was right when he said, “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.”

Lorena's story is excerpted from "Your New Fighting Stance," by life coach and communications consultant Steve Piacente. Part 1 is here.