Why I Titled My Book 'The Herd'
I express both my love and critique of the media in this novel.
The last ten years of my life have led me right here, to this moment. In 2015, I got my first real taste of the news world, starting as an unpaid intern at NY1 in New York City. It wasn’t glamorous—most interns didn’t get paid—but I hustled my way through with a second job just to keep my foot in the newsroom door. Eventually, I moved on to freelancing as a news assistant, lugging my clunky video camera from fires to crime scenes to galas. If news was breaking, I was there. And I always knew I was in the right place when I saw the other cameras gathered around.
I’ll never forget some of those moments. There was a woman, likely suffering from postpartum depression, who threw her child out of a window. The media was there—pushing, shoving, doing everything to capture the heartbreak. A celebrity took their own life, a perp walk in front of the cameras—we were all there, jostling for the best angle, the best shot. In those situations, I stopped being friendly, polite Jenny who waited her turn. I became laser-focused on getting the footage. It was what you had to do to survive in NYC news—you had to be a little bullish just to keep your job. Over time, I realized that when I joined that crowd, something changed in me. I called it “The Herd.”
The truth is, I thought our information apparatus was broken then. But today, it’s on life support. What is happening to our media landscape is a large part of our constitutional crisis, something I try to capture in the book.
You see, the herd mentality isn’t just about competition; it’s also about everyone chasing the exact same story for fear of missing out. When I got a small raise and became an assignment editor, I finally understood why so many stations covered the same thing: if you weren’t following what everyone else was doing, you had to justify yourself to the news director.
Nobody wanted to risk being the only one not on the “big” story of the day. And what I realized I developed was—not a love for the creative stories that I could bring to the newsroom as a diverse individual—but instead, a group-think mentality where I was always trying to be on par with station peers, letting external factors guide what I deemed important.
I’ve poured that concept into my book, “The Herd.” It’s about the lengths we’ll go to survive, but also the stories we allow to see the light of day and why. Writing this book was a way to reflect on my media experience.
Next Sunday, my eBook finally comes out and that same Wednesday you can get physical copies, and I’m excited and nervous. It feels surreal that after all these years—after that first unpaid internship, those long days of freelancing, and becoming an assignment editor—I’m finally releasing a piece of work that’s been brewing inside me. I really hope it resonates with you as much as it does with me. I’m looking forward to sharing it, hearing what you think, and talking more about the themes that have shaped my life in news and beyond. Thanks for following along this journey with me—I can’t wait to see where it goes next.
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