My First Byline: Heather Mayer Irvine
Freelance journalist
What is your current job?
I, like many former editors and staff writers, am now a freelance journalist. I left my full-time senior editor position at Runner's World in 2018, with a loose plan to write a few things a month while I spent time with my then 9-month-old son. But nearly seven years and two more kids later, I'm juggling a pretty heavy workload in between naps and snacks and dropoffs and pickups. Much of what I write is in the nutrition and running space, but I've branched out to local news, human interest stories and classroom magazines.
What was your first byline?
I was 8 years old when I earned my first byline. Not to brag or anything but I was the sole reporter, art director, editor, publisher and delivery service for The Neighborhood News—a thoroughly reported happenings of everything on my suburban street. The actual local news even covered it, and eventually the other local news outlet hired me.
But perhaps the byline I'm most proud of (everyone but The Boston Globe, avert your eyes!) is a story I wrote in the early days of the pandemic for The Boston Globe. I grew up reading the Globe, and in fifth grade, my science teacher had us go through the Health and Science section every week, cut out something interesting and create a scrapbook with those loose three rings poked through construction paper. The fact that I'd eventually go into health and science reporting was written in the stars at age 10.
Anyway, it wasn't until I was almost 33 that I saw my name in the Globe. The article was about a woman who would write one page of a story per day and hang it on her door for her 2-year-old neighbor (the same age as my son at the time), to entertain him during the lockdown. I wish my Bobie (grandmother, born and raised in the Boston area) had been able to see that byline.
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What was your first real job in journalism?
Well that Neighborhood News gig landed me the first-of-its-kind role at the smaller local paper, The Hometown Weekly, writing a weekly news column on all the news that was fit to print coming from my middle school. Readers, it was called, "Blake's Breaking News." (Blake Middle School) I assure you, it was not breaking news. But, every week from sixth through 10th grade I covered my school. And it was a job because I got paid. In a swath of entertainment tickets, including Disney on Ice and the Harlem Globetrotters.
All jokes aside, The Hometown Weekly, was a real newspaper and this experience helped me build my journalism foundation, including working with difficult editors.
How did you get it?
"My mom," I say, sheepishly. I had been writing my own newspaper for a few years, and my mom, who's mostly never wrong, found The Hometown Shopper (as it was originally called) at our town's "Medfield Day." She talked to the two guys who owned the paper—the younger one was 26, which today, blows my mind since I'm 37—and told them her 11-year-old daughter would love to write a column for them. She introduced me and I guess she gave them our number or took theirs, and shortly after that they hired me.
What advice do you have for people looking to break into journalism?
I'll start by saying, no, you don't have to go to journalism school to become a journalist. I did (shoutout to Newhouse!), but I definitely learned more from my days as a reporter and editor at the independent student newspaper, The Daily Orange. That said, something that really grinds my gears is when people find out what I do, and they say, oh I should do that, like everyone and their mother can just become a reporter. Not everyone is a writer. Not everyone is a reporter. These jobs take skills, even the non-Pulitzer Prize winning ones. (Side ramble: I love-hate that in so many movies and shows, you've got a main character who's a journalist or an aspiring journalist—because yeah, it's a really cool job. But not everyone can do it.)
Beyond that, if you find yourself hitting a publication's paywall twice in one week, it's time to pay for the subscription. People give me a hard time when they try to read my work in publications like Runner's World, which is behind a paywall, and I no longer roll with it. Now, I say, "Well I need to get paid somehow." (And sometimes I follow that with, "Would you / your boss give X away for free?") Even better if you can pay for local news.
Find Heather on her website, BlueSky and LinkedIn.