You want ME to talk to KIDS about JOURNALISM? Uh oh.

I am scheduled to be a guest at a career day today at Los Altos High School in Hacienda Heights. A group of 19 students want to talk to a journalist, and for better or for worse, I'm what they end up with. The organizer told me I can expect questions like why I got into this business (I wanted to be a sports writer, and decided at 16 that my byline would be JJ McLain so that I could disguise my gender); what the salary range is (worse than a barista at Starbucks); when I decided I wanted to be a journalist (at 14 when I realized how cool it was to see my name in the newspaper from the sports I participated in); what degree I got in school (religious studies with a Middle Eastern studies focus).

I wonder if I should mention anything about how critics feel that our industry is dying and has no future?