After-School Tales

Amber Gooding never thought she'd be involved with the Canadian Forces when she decided to pursue a career in print journalism. "I am as civilian as it gets," she says. Yet here she is, a 27-year-old with no military background putting together morale-boosting stories for the men and women of the largest air base in Canada.

Amber's not complaining. As the assistant editor and web developer of The Contact Newspaper at the base 8 Wing/CFB Trenton, she gets to put her journalism training to good use. She manages a small team of staff. She writes. She edits. She takes photos. She contributes to page layout. She even provides website maintenance, a duty she first acquired as an intern for this same newspaper.

Working for a small weekly publication, Amber and her team have no choice-they each must take on multiple duties if they hope to meet their deadlines. "Each and every day can be drastically different," Amber says. She has to cover events as needed. And she must often liaise with the base's public affairs officers and imaging section to coordinate feature story ideas, weekly events or presentations.

Amber admits that print journalism isn't an easy field. "Sometimes you really are only as good as your last story," she says. When she was going to school at Loyalist College in Belleville, Ontario, she witnessed some of her classmates grow dissatisfied when they realized that a career in print journalism might not always be how they imagined it.

"But if you are true to yourself and your work, you will always succeed," Amber says. She credits her optimistic attitude to her experiences at Loyalist College. "A journalism career isn't possible without developing the field's standard skill-set," she says. She developed hands-on experience with interviewing, reporting, writing and taking photographs. But she gained more than just professional skills. "Some of the greatest lessons learned were about friendships, personal growth and an overall sense of self," she says.

As a result, Amber hasn't lost sight of what inspired her to become a journalist in the first place. She gets to share the stories of real people. And by taking the risk to step into such an unfamiliar atmosphere in which to tell those stories, this civilian is finding rewards she didn't bargain for.

"I enjoy being in an environment that makes me appreciate people on a greater level," Amber says. "I have a new-found outlook and understanding for the Canadian Forces."

And a fulfilling career that is sure to keep surprising her.