Q: I recently began working as editorial assistant at a newspaper with a 500,000-plus circulation. Before this, I worked for half a year as a freelance writer for community weekly newspapers.
My decision to pursue journalism is recent; I went to graduate school in literature, thinking I was committed to becoming a professor. After a year at graduate school, I decided I missed my passion—writing. I am a poet, and found academia limiting to my desire to use my creativity in a practical way. I did not write for the college newspaper very much, but began thinking that I could be very happy in the journalism field, with my love of writing, research and social issues. I was reluctant to even begin pursuing journalism at first because I felt I had started too late in the game, without clips and the know-how to break my way in. I worked as a technical writer for a year and hated it.
I am fully aware that my present position is not a stepping-stone into a reporting job, with my lack of experience. However, I took this job because I felt it would help solidify my ambition to pursue journalism, for me to really see if it is something I want to do, as well as help me pay off enormous student loan debt. (I was making less than minimum wage as a freelancer for the small weeklies and had to find other options.)
Now I am ready to commit myself, but want to make the most of my time. I intend to apply to graduate school in journalism, and am thinking it best that I stay in this position no longer than a year. I plan to take news writing classes while working, as well as study about journalism on my own to delve into the craft.
I am prohibited from working as a freelancer with “direct competitors” of the paper. I was hoping that the paper’s community-oriented section would allow me to chance to write, but was recently told that as a full-time employee, that I was ineligible to write freelance for them because it would qualify as overtime. Without pestering, I have made it known to my boss and the editors in our department that I am willing to do anything that would allow me to write or gain newsroom experience—news briefs, monitor police radios, do research. By my own persistence, I began compiling and writing daily traffic information, but this is the extent to which my job goes beyond administrative-type duties.
My main questions for you are these: what I can do right now to make the most of my time if I am serious about becoming a reporter? How can I break in to writing for newspapers for other cities, or even magazines, while in my present position (granted they don’t compete with the paper)? Will I ruin my relationship with the newspaper if I only stay for a little over a year, leaving to go to graduate school? Should I ask for recommendations of those editors I trust, even though when I send in my application I will only have been working there a little over six months?
Lastly, about graduate school: what are the schools known for providing their students with the best practical experience, allowing them to graduate with clips?
Ready
A: It seems you must string for out-of-town publications, most likely magazines.
Enlist your editors' support. It sounds as though you have told them of your career ambitions; enlist their support. If you can get them to participate in your struggle, they will be proud to see you go and happy to bring you back later.
You are right on to look for graduate programs that require you to publish. Many programs offer that as one of their tracks. As you check out schools, ask them which courses allow you to do the most publishing.
