Today I have an article on Highline about how Mark Zuckerberg should give away his $45 billion.
It’s a big deal for me! Not like because it’s on the internet and super long and got fact-checked and stuff. It’s the first story I’ve written that I didn’t show to my mom before I showed it to my editor.
In the last two years, since I started experimenting with this whole journalism thing, it’s always felt like a hobby. Even as I started getting paid, started dealing with editors, started getting invited to say stuff on panels, it always felt fake, like any moment they will realize I’m just this asshole in his pajamas.
But on this one I was like ‘OK Mike what would a real journalist do?’ I called up hella people. I learned what the terms ‘off the record’ and ‘on background’ mean. I looked at tax filings. I called up the organizations I was complaining about and asked them to respond.
All of that is work. And, for the first time, this little journalism project of mine felt like a job. I had, of course, a ton of help. My editors are great, the infographics people made everything look terrific, the fact-checker was exactly the kind of junkyard dog you need him to be.
I have no idea if this little hobby is ever going to lead to anything real. Maybe I’ll always feel like I’m faking it. Maybe the people already doing it feel like that too. At least from now on, I’ll take some of the pressure off my mom.
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