The Risk To Love

CH 19: Stalkers & Sentiment

Listen to Messages by Stan Walker

Chapter 19

"While we're young Chad," I was growing impatient by now. He stepped forward throwing his hands up in the air, "We want our freedom of media, damn it!"

I was shocked to say the least. Not only was this abrupt but everyone seemed to agree.

"Sorry girlfriend! I didn't mean for an aggressive approach but what I'm trying to say is that we want this to be a memorable year-"

"What are you talking about? All I've ever done is censor all articles and include a few changes here and there, you should all be thanking me otherwise the newspaper team would have been cut by the school board if all submitted articles were printed or uploaded raw!" I moved towards them stating an obvious point. They all slumped their head in their hands like I hadn't gotten the message. "

See? I told you she wouldn't get it," Nick, our photography guy gazed at me sympathetically.

Chad advanced closer, "What we mean to say, is that for you, this is just a side job that you can add onto your reference but for us, its something that we wanna gain a career out of." Before I could interrupt he shushed my lips with his fingers. "Take for instance, your artwork is what you're more passionate about, so imagine someone who dictated what you can and cannot paint. As if you were being handed the colour blue and told to draw a bright yellow sun." Matilda made hand signals telling him that he was getting off track. Grabbing my shoulders she pushed her huge glasses up her nose. "The truth is, I started my blog to put articles that you didn't want to put in the paper...are you mad?" She whispered timidly. "A little," I told her truthfully.

"We don't want you to stop being our editor or head of the team cause you're the glue that keeps us all together but I know for a fact, Nick here, wants to work for Aljezeera as a journalist and Chad wants to get an internship with Teen Vogue...we just all want opportunities and to get them we have to start by being truthful to our work don't you think?"

"And not boring articles about the new soda machine in the cafeteria or the principals refurnished office," Chad mumbled referring to our last weeks edition. "To hell with what the school thinks Shay!" Nick exclaimed. "We should be addressing realistic issues, like the social food chain or the corruption of teachers with students and if we go down for it, so be it! It's our senior year and we want to be remembered as the fearless and the bold."

"We're not a gossip site for the school or a trash talking paper,we present major headliners that students will want to read so everything must be presented with some form of physical proof." I laid out sternly.

"Duh."

"No shit."

"That's what camera's are for," Nick pointed out snapping a shot of me.

I was silent after that yet they still anticipated my response. Honestly, I've never heard Matilda be so honest or Chad and Nick be so determined to get a point across. Was I too chicken to allow this the whole time?

Risk #11: Free the Media.

"Okay. So whats the plan?" I smiled up at all of them. Lets just say there was a helluva lot of screaming,hugging and happy dancing before we actually got started. I've got to hand it to the team, they were brilliant. Everything was figured out,now all we had to do was draw up all the articles. Unfortunately the team got a little creative so I was stuck with having to uncover a sticky story.

°
°
°
°
°
°
°
°
"You have to do what now?" Jay spat her water all over the table making the other girls groan in disgust.