fear of annoyance.

Today in lecture we talked about covering trauma. One of the things that Matt Pearce said was he's never fully gotten over feeling a little uncomfortable having to call people during times of trauma. I really related to this. 

I've never covered trauma as a journalist yet. However, one thing I dread doing is calling people in general, out of fear that I'm being annoying, or that I'm the last person they want to talk to.  

In my own life, though I wouldn't necessarily label it as "trauma," I did experience some hard things. My dad was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer my freshman year of high school. During the entire three years of him fighting, I had memorized my robotic response to whenever people would try to talk to me about it. 

"How's your dad doing? How are you? Is your family okay?"

I had gotten so sick of the same questions from different people, that I was never genuine and honest with how things really were. I knew people cared, but their surface level questions convinced me otherwise. But ultimately, people care. 

I think one of the biggest challenges as a journalist is convincing people that you DO care about their story. Once people know that, they will most likely be more open and vulnerable with you. Again, that goes back to asking the right questions. 

I know I care and it's on me to convince someone else of that.