Planet Depos polled its freelance reporters seeking insight into their experiences with either mentoring or being mentored, and the results were phenomenal.
The respondents unanimously agreed that mentoring is the most valuable gift a working reporter can give to a student or new reporter. Danielle Krautkramer tells Planet Depos that “there are no down-sides, only up-sides to mentoring,” that she always “has fun mentoring others,” and that each of the people she’s mentored have always come away “feeling that they learned so much.”
Marla Sharp explained that her mentor/protégé relationships become long-term friendships/connections in which her protégés know that they can call, text or e-mail questions and bounce ideas off of her whenever and wherever needed. She also shared that because reporters typically work from home, mentoring really “helps each new reporter feel less isolated” and is “a godsend” because it’s like each mentee has their own “help desk,” and that connection really helps diminish the isolation factor.
Donna has mentored 10 aspiring court reporters, and Marla has mentored quite a few, and they both indicated that long after their mentees have spread their wings and taken the leap into the profession, they have kept in touch, asking questions about punctuation, odd occurrences in transcripts and situations in the field.
Each one of Donna’s mentees has felt that it made a difference and really encouraged them to keep practicing and not give up. There are so many aspects to working as a reporter that are not explained to reporting students, like becoming a notary, that Donna indicated having a mentor there to help each student with those processes really “helps them get through.”
Each mentor agreed that the only downside to mentoring is that the mentees don’t ask more questions and utilize them even more. An unanticipated outcome of mentoring from almost every respondent was that “mentoring reminds them to stay on top of their game.”
Seeing how happy the mentees are after they have entered the profession has been the best reward of all for each mentor. Each mentor, without exception, felt that helping an individual make their dreams come true was just an amazing feeling, and that the life-long friendships that resulted have provided them with incalculable happiness and pride.