Q: First off, I want to tell you how much I've learned from your Web site. It's a tremendous resource, an island oasis for those of us who are navigating the treacherous waters of the job search seas. Thank you so much.
Second, I have a question for you. I worked at a small daily paper for three years, and interned a couple places before that. I love journalism and I feel I'm pretty good at it and can see myself doing it for the rest of my life. That said, I'm taking a break from it to help out my grandmother, who's recently been diagnosed with an ugly disease. I've been looking for a low-stress, low-responsibility job for the summer, and today I was offered one - a job with the Sierra Club, working on their campaign to stop off-shore drilling. I would be pushing petitions, asking people for money, going door to door and so on. I'd like to take the job, but I'm worried that it might affect my journalistic integrity later on. In five years, I don't want to have to worry about whether I should be covering some environmental story that involves the Sierra Club or something. What do you think?
Thanks so much for your time, and thank you again for your excellent work on the site.
Katie
A: You will have to worry about exactly what you said. Working for an advocacy group like the Sierra Club can hurt your reputation for independence later when reporting on issues where that group has taken a position.
Any editor would like to have those stories done by another reporter free of those connections.
