Dear Diary

I got fired from my Journalism job at The Announcer today! After three and a half years of hard work. long hours, deadlines, front page news, editorials, movie reviews and dedication and he fired me! I always did the stories how Mr Matthews asked me to, I got my work in before the deadlines, I made that paper! Mr Matthews told me he didn't have a front page story for this Saturday. He said to me 'Alicia, you are my most reliable and best working journalist. I know you can find me a front page by 5pm tomorrow!' He told me this With a sincere tone in his voice and the truth reflected in his eyes. This was like fire in my belly, I knew I couldn't let him down this time!

It was Michael's Birthday party tomorrow afternoon, so I had to strive to find something good by then. There was nothing!! Everyone must have left town because there was nothing happening, no social events, league season hadn't started again yet, and not even any political scandal that our paper hadn't already blabbed on about for the last month! The stress was· getting to me. I knew I had to take at least an hour off for myself to collect my thoughts. Lucky I had my hair appointment. I was on the way to salon.

For an autumn nigh it was awfully cold. It was raining heavy and there were wet leaves all over the road. I was carefully driving behind a red P plater who was going over the limit. I made sure I had a bigger gap between our cars than usual because I knew the conditions of the road were horrible. I was thinking if I couldn't find anything by mid-morning tomorrow then I would have to do another article on unsafe provisional drivers. I looked away from the road for a second while I grabbed my notepad off the passenger side seat. I heard some screeching, looked up and saw the glowing red of the P platers brake lights. I slammed my feet onto the clutch and brake immediately, Lucky I kept extra distance because the wet roads made me take longer to brake. I was close to hitting the rear of the car. It took me a minute to process what I was seeing in front of me. A car ran from the other side of the road and slammed into the driver's side door. I had my story! I called 000 and grabbed my notepad and my umbrella. I started writing down anything I could use for the article; my short hand is still not the best so it just looked like scribble.l could hear the sirens coming down the road. I couldn't get close enough to either of the drivers to be able to see if they were okay. There was no~one else around.

I missed out on my hair appointment by the time I got interviewed and all that legal stuff. I could hear what they were saying It would make the perfect front page news. I guess it wasn't ethical but I wanted the best front page news, I wanted to prove to Mr Matthews that I was the best journalist no matter what it took. I knew the date, time. the driver that was at fault's name and I had a picture with the number plate. I wanted to let people know that it wasn't the provisional driver's fault like everyone would think. I got my front page article done before dawn on Friday morning so I could use my day off to sleep and prepare for Michaels birthday party. I know it wasn't ethical what I did but Mr Matthews must not have proof read it because he was the one that let the article run. My name was on top of the article so everyone addressed the complaints to the editor writing my name in bold. He was disappointed in me, so he had fired me by Monday lunch.

I'm so disappointed in myself, 1 knew that it was unethical, I don't know why I did it, I just wanted to be the best!