Before I ever stepped into a newsroom, I was the kid who taped a Minnesota road map to the fridge and delivered the forecast like it was breaking news. I dreamed of being the voice behind the headlines, the one telling the stories that mattered. Twenty years ago, that dream felt unstoppable—until one summer internship proved me wrong. Unfortunately, this didn’t come without heartache, pain and plenty of embarrassment.

It was the spring of 2005, and I was wrapping up my sophomore year at North Dakota State University. Grappling with what to do for the summer, I knew one thing: it had to be productive. I was toying with picking up a summer internship at a TV news station in my college town, which felt like an impossible feat. 

Looking back it makes no sense. I’d be paying – rent, utilities and otherwise – to stay in windy Fargo rather than live in my parent’s gorgeous lake home for the summer. But despite “free lodging at the lake” sitting right there, I desired to work an unpaid internship in concrete paradise. I was picking a communications-based industry, so calculating wasn’t a top talent. I was braver, a bit more reckless and obviously up for a challenge.

So, one afternoon too late in the school year, I used my roommate’s cordless dorm room phone to call three area TV news stations to inquire about internships. The first two turned me down immediately – the time to apply for them was well in advance, or at least more in advance than a week before classes concluded.

The third station was interested. 

“I like to meet my interns before they start,” the news director said through the static of the black and orange Panasonic. My records show we scheduled a meeting on April 19, 2005, a date I don’t recall other than for a moment in history which I’m soon to spell out. 

Feeling confident the news director meant what he said (he just needed to meet me as opposed to interview me), I put next to no thought into our meetup aside from finding the address and printing out MapQuest directions in the computer lab to be sure I made it on time. I would not risk this opportunity!

The morning of our meeting, I went to an 8 a.m. class, got a quick breakfast at the dining hall and was on my way, directional printouts in hand. 

Upon arrival, I asked for the news director and was taken down a lengthy hallway where the nerves started ratcheting. Maybe because the hallway was dimly lit. Maybe it was the smell of the building or the glimpses of a few gloomy faces. I knew almost instantly the vibe was off, but I never imagined what was to come.

The news director opened the sliding glass door of his office to introduce himself. As an early college student with dreams of building a successful career, this was like meeting your favorite rockstar. An all-star athlete. Your role model. It was a pivotal moment before one of the bigger crashes of my life.

He gestured to have a seat as he slid the door to a close and started in easy, as best I remember. We had the usual “tell me about yourself” conversation, where I’m certain I shared my fond thoughts on my college meteorology course.

In response, I likely leaked that I was mostly interested in becoming a meteorologist, largely due to a fascinating NDSU professor who could have made any lecture worth the long, icy, early morning walk. He entertained the idea, informing me female meteorologists are very rare – it would be a good route, if I could pull it off.

Then came a few more challenging topics. I can’t remember the exact questions – but our discussion took a hard veer into politics. He began asking me to name certain politicians in D.C., then our state, then locally. When I tested poorly at those questions and reminded him I was a relatively new-to-the-area student, he was generous enough to open the quiz to politics in my home state. 

He tried to help me, but I proceeded to test poorly.

By this point he had become fairly frustrated with how little I knew about the political environment. He leaned back in his chair, clearly unimpressed, and hit me with a question that separates a news junkie from the oblivious.

“Can you tell me what the top news story is today?”

He glared at me from across his cluttered desk. I held his glare, and likely had an expression of sorts to return in his direction. I wasn’t happy with how this was going, either. I was fumbling this unpaid internship opportunity and simply not able to produce a single answer.

Though it was mortifying, I revealed the truth. 

“No.” I said firmly – as if I was totally justified in not knowing. I mean – how obvious could that day’s “top story” even be?

His glare turned into a head shake. Disbelief. 

I somehow held it together. Maybe I had just enough confidence to know that failing this pop-quiz of a political interview wouldn’t be the end of me – not at that station, not in that office, not with that awkward sliding glass door behind me. Even if I fell short of his standards, he wouldn’t define my future success. He couldn’t extract a single answer from me, but he also couldn’t strip me of my determination, my work ethic or my creativity.

Turns out there was pretty big news that day.

“A new pope was elected today.”

If I hadn’t been living in my little academic bubble, where the only headlines were my homework deadlines, I probably would’ve known that. But I’m not Catholic, and nor was I glued to the news back then. My world then revolved around grades, not current events. 

As if this wasn’t already a memorable experience, he made sure I knew I was the least-informed person in the room.

“Look at you,” he said, flabbergasted.

“You’re worthless to the news business.”

Worthless. 

Confident I couldn’t recover from this, I nodded in agreement and decided saying nothing was my best course.   

He began to excuse me, and to my absolute surprise, he let me know he’d give me a second chance. He said he’d reach out in a week and ask me the same series of questions. If I could answer them correctly, I could spend the summer in his presence, in this joyous atmosphere. 

You’d think I’d have high-tailed it out of there and ghosted him, but again, calculations were off. Or I was brave, or a little stupid. Or all the above. 

I spent the week cramming politics and when he called back, I nailed every political question he had. I was hired right then to spend my summer suffering!

He asked when I could start, and seemed upset when I revealed I didn’t plan to spend every day that summer at the station – I wanted to spend a few days per week working a paying job. We worked out a loose schedule and I started as soon as I could. I learned a lot that summer.

I learned choosing NDSU was like showing up to a Vikings tailgate in Packers gear—everyone let me know it was the “wrong” choice if I wanted a career in news. The news director, videographers, reporters all sang the same tune, proudly waving their diplomas from the neighboring university. But I wasn’t budging. Transferring wasn’t even on my radar.

I learned to avoid wearing “ugly green” – the color I chose on the one day I spent with the meteorologist. While showing me the ropes of weather reporting and the green screen, he pointed to my sweater and explained—using words I still remember—that I should avoid “ugly green” colors, like the very shade I was wearing that day.

I learned this career should be reserved for those with steel in their spine. We visited the aftermath of fires that had reduced people’s homes to ashes, trudged through muddy messes on relentless rainy days and walked neighborhoods still scarred by gunfire from domestic incidents.

I learned that the reality of reporting was often more draining than exciting. On the drives to these locations, I’d sit quietly in the back seat and intently listen to the photographer and reporter complain in detail about their jobs, coworkers and pay. As I experienced more, I wanted less to do with this internship. This station. This career.

I dreaded showing up there, and did what I could to blend into the background. (Except wear that “ugly” green sweater. That got donated after one wear.) But I let my hours in that stale newsroom dissipate and by mid-summer, I was showing up on fewer days for reduced hours. I simply couldn’t stomach more. 

The blending worked well until the morning meeting when I was handed my first and only assignment of the summer: do a package in E-85 fuel, which had just become available at a local gas station. I turned down an on-camera opportunity but a dusty VHS tape in a deep corner of my basement serves as proof of the story I wrote and recorded a voiceover to lead the news that day. 

That’s the last clear memory I have of my internship. I don’t recall having a last day or any type of farewell party – certainly no thank-you speech, by them or me. But while I left the newsroom with little more than a bruised ego and a single tape of my voice-over work, I also walked away with something invaluable:clarity.

That summer internship – with all its frustrations, discomfort and brutal honesty – was what I needed to slash “be a news gal” from my list of dreams. And going through that life-pivoting experience early in my education was a gift. It gave me time to pivot. Instead of chasing a path that didn’t fit, I discovered passions that did: creative writing, photography and design – talents that became the foundation for a career that plays to my strengths. 

So, while I won’t be seen walking the halls of a news station again anytime soon, I’m grateful for that painful chapter. Turns out the biggest headline of that summer wasn’t the new pope – it was me breaking the news to myself: reporting was off the table. And while this was a quiet realization, sometimes the most important stories in our lives are the ones that never make it on air.

Shootin’ the Wit is a sporadic blog about everyday life that should never, ever be taken too seriously.