Neha Chollangi
Times-Chronicle
A month and a half before finishing my journalism degree at Ryerson University, coronavirus hit. And let me just say that graduating during a global pandemic is not something I would recommend to anyone. What’s worse is the job hunting that comes after, as I saw (and continue to see) major layoffs in the industry, and hundreds of newspapers shutting down permanently. I was deflated.
“This is incredibly anti-climactic,” I kept telling everyone.
I declared my interest in journalism when I was 16. I read everything feverishly and knew I wanted to be a writer to some capacity. Yet I’m not exactly sure why I picked journalism, considering I knew very little about the industry. Despite this, I managed to choose a surprisingly fitting path for myself.
At Ryerson, I carved out a specific interest in long-form journalism. More than any particular topic, I loved the process of long interviews with people, having great conversations and learning facets of a subject I had little knowledge of before. One of the long features I wrote during my final year while working on the Ryerson Review of Journalism magazine was an in-depth look into exiled journalists in Canada. I also spent some time freelancing after I graduated, but knew I wanted experience working in a newsroom.
The opportunity for a reporting job here in Osoyoos came last summer while I was applying for jobs all over the country. I’d never been to B.C. before, but after Googling Osoyoos, my eyes turned into hearts like a cartoon character. I was initially supposed to move here in September, but the second wave of COVID-19 kept pushing that date back more and more. In November, I started reporting full time for the paper from my home in Mississauga, Ontario as a temporary solution, and finally found my way down to the Okanagan last month.
It’s been an incredibly special experience to be part of a small but hard working team that’s driven to keep local news alive during a critical time for the industry. While the gaps for underrepresented communities continue to exist in this country, I would like to be part of an effort to document and highlight these voices.
I’m thrilled to get to know more about the people in this community and find new ways to share your stories. Don’t hesitate to stop by the Times Chronicle office in Osoyoos to chat or shoot me an email at [email protected].
