“I would rather have two jobs than no job,” says Reeves.
By JAMES BENNETT III
USFSP Student Reporter
Megan Reeves covers two education beats: the Pinellas County school system and the University of South Florida.
So in a typical day, she might attend a USF St. Petersburg Campus Board meeting, comb through public records on a former middle school principal, then do some interviews for the university beat.
And that’s all before lunch.
While juggling the two educational behemoths, she can’t help but wonder if her time would be better spent on just one of them.
She prefers the K-12 beat, where she feels her work has the potential to make a bigger difference. But there is still important work to be done on the USF beat, and the cash-strapped, staff-thin Tampa Bay Times does not have reporters to spare.
“I would rather have two jobs than no job,” said Reeves, 26.
At first, neither beat seemed all that glamorous. She was used to cop ride-alongs, burning buildings and interviewing the families of murderers. Still, it was an opportunity to work at the place that calls itself “Florida’s Best Newspaper.”
Reeves’ interest grew once she started reporting the K-12 beat.
She learned how much corruption can be hidden in the education systems, how underfunded some schools are, and how important it is to make sure the next generation is coming out of school prepared
“Now, I look around the newsroom and I’m like there’s nothing that I want to do more than this,” she said.
Reeves vividly recalls her first day as a Times intern.
Driving from her home in Hillsborough County, she arrived in St. Petersburg two hours early on the chilly morning of Jan. 18, 2016.
Assistant metro editor Roy LeBlanc, the paper’s intern coordinator, welcomed her with an explanation of newsroom policies, a lecture on plagiarism and a warning: If she was ever pulled over for speeding, it wouldn’t be smart to tell the officer that she was racing to meet deadline.
Afterward, sitting at her desk, she racked her brain for story ideas. She wanted her first piece at the Times to be a home run.
“I was so afraid to fail, or for them to think, ‘Oh, we hired this intern, why did we do this? We took a chance on her.’”
Then she had a light-bulb moment.
Gasparilla was right around the corner. After watching video after video of tipsy pirates tossing beads into the water, Reeves asked a nearby reporter if he could suggest some environmentalists she could ask about the effect of all the beads that end up in the bay.
The resulting article landed her on 1-A on her third day on the job. The editor congratulated her with a handwritten letter that she treasures.
The following three years have been filled with countless long days, reluctant sources and a bit of relocating.
“You don’t do this job because it’s 40 hours or because you make a lot of money,” Reeves said. “You do this job because it’s a beautiful, wonderful thing and a gift.”