Mailbag: How did you decide to become a journalist?

I'll be answering questions that I get on "Ask Michele" throughout the year and the first one is from Brian -- 

Message: Hi Michele I was wondering when and how you decided to become a journalist?

Hi Brian: 
I had four jobs that I was interested in at a young age: 1) reporter, 2) stock trader (Big "Trading Places" fan over here), 3) healthcare worker for families in the Philippines, 4) short order cook. I remember telling my dad my career plans and his response was, "Kind of falls off a cliff between 3 and 4 doesn't it?" True that, dad. 
Lucky for me, I never had to decide on 2, 3 or 4....although frying up eggs is always the backup plan. 
I was maybe 12 when I thought of pursuing journalism and media as a career- I knew I wanted to eventually do broadcast because my dad listened to a morning radio show on WGN in Chicago every weekday as he was getting ready for work. We also subscribed to the newspaper and watched the evening news. Our grade school had a monthly newspaper, as did my high school. And I easily spent more time in the newsroom of the Daily Illini than my classrooms at the University of Illinois. I loved it. Working in a newsroom is as much fun as you can have while still paying your rent. As I got older, I appreciated the important public service that journalists fulfill, and the unifying power of sports in increasingly fraught times. Those stories can get out through places like ESPN - and I am thankful for that. 

Everywhere I go, I try to buy the newspaper and I support subscriber based models as well. Media karma, kids!