6 Big Questions For the Job-Seeking Journalism Grad
On their ways to picking up their diplomas, a fair number of our journalism graduates at Sacramento State stop by my office to say two things: “Goodbye,” and, “Yikes, now what?”
It’s a good but often dumbfounding question for a mentor. And like so many of the riddles confronting journalism students (“How do I get a job?”, “Should I go to journalism school?”, “What is the best city for working as a journalist?”), my replies depend on how well new journalists can answer six questions of my own. Editors and employers have the same questions. It’s worth taking some time to openly, honestly think them through:
1. Where can I find your work?
The absolute best (and cheapest) investment young journalists can make in themselves is a personal website. It should contain a portfolio and/or a reel, a photo, a bio, an updated résumé, and some occasional front-page updates collecting links to new work or other career developments. The earlier you develop this, the better: Start by registering your name’s web domain, or the closest available web domain; consider preceding it with “meet” if your name isn’t available, e.g. meetyourname.com, but not yournamejournalist.com or anything journalism-centric. (You want to retain some flexibility with the domain in case you ever opt out of journalism.) Consider registering the domain as part of a good hosting package at a turnkey site like Squarespace, or, if you feel comfortable with WordPress, download a theme you can publish on a reliable service like Bluehost. (Tip: Whichever service you want, ask for a family member to pay for it as a graduation present).
If you’ve never tinkered under the hood of a website or blog, use free YouTube tutorials to understand what’s what, and/or ask an experienced friend to help you customize your new site. If you don’t know HTML code from a ZIP code, don’t worry: While it’s worth learning some coding basics, you can easily find an off-the-shelf solution to plug into your new domain and publish links to your work. You can set all of this up in a day. And if you don’t have clips or a reel to publish here, then start producing some on your own and posting it to your site as frequently as possible. The more you publish, the better you’ll become — and the sooner you’ll be able to position yourself among your competition.
2. What do you read?
The first time a journalism professor asked me this question, I was flummoxed. I scrambled for answers: All I could conjure was an All the President’s Men book report and maybe a recent celebrity profile in Vanity Fair. “No,” the professor said. “Like what authors. What books.” It took me a few days, but I finally understood what he was getting at: At every stage of a journalist’s life, what and who we read provides frameworks for us to understand everything from story to voice to detail to setting. (And that’s just at the technical level: For a great look at the psychic and intellectual resonance of the books we read, check out Pamela Paul’s new My Life With Bob, a fascinating exploration of her decades-old reading journal.)
Recognizing who and what you like to read is the first step to knowing not only what and where you’ll like to write, but who you even ARE as a writer.
By no means am I the archetypal avid reader, but that dog-eared Lester Bangs anthology I’d read and re-read since high school instilled in me the vitality and value of specificity — describing Otis Rush’s blues guitar sound as a “bloody iceberg,” for instance, or Bangs’ tonal nuance in eulogizing his estranged friend, the critic and musician Peter Laughner. Michael Herr’s Dispatches and Joan Didion’s The White Album, with their connoisseurship of verbs and place, gripped me in college. (They still do.) These writers fed to me rhythms and structures that I metabolized and absorbed in work of my own. Recognizing who and what you like to read is the first step to knowing not only what and where you’ll like to write, but who you even are as a writer. (The same goes for stuff you dislike.) You can’t fake this awareness, and as a former hiring editor, take my word for it: You won’t even get past the cover letter stage of a job application without it.
Broadcast journalism hopefuls aren’t off the hook. Sometimes my students say, “Well, I don’t really want to write; I’m going to be a sideline reporter.” Fine. What do you watch? What do you listen to? Regardless of the medium, we need these influences and inspirations to hone our instincts at every stage of our careers. Young journalists need them more than anybody — to study how the pros do it, to understand what sets them apart, to identify the standards and techniques you might emulate. Knowing the big names and emulating their profiles isn’t enough. It’s essential to understand how and why their work contains meaning to you. Emulate that.
3. Who do you WANT to know?
You’ve heard the cliché that admonishes, “It’s not what you know, but who you know.” There’s a lot of truth to it. But if you’re connected enough to transition seamlessly from college to work in the media, then you’re probably not coming to me for advice. Either way, this old saw overlooks the needs to develop our own agency and independence — two principles essential to any journalist.
So, after we determine that they don’t have wealthy relatives or patrons in media, I advise young journalism grads to try initiating those connections instead. Single out five professionals whose work inspires you. (If you can’t come up with five, return to Question #2.) Search for their email addresses online. (A good reporting exercise; do not shortcut this on Twitter or Facebook.) Send them a brief note introducing yourself and commending some recent work of theirs. Explain why you like it and specific ways it’s made an impact on your own work. Maybe it’s a description of a subject’s face or a geographic setting. Maybe it’s the organization and clarity of complex material. Maybe it’s just the pure pleasure you experienced as a reader/viewer/listener. In any case, try to show your chosen pros’ some examples of their influence through linking to work of your own. (And if you don’t have examples, jump back to #1.) Solicit feedback from them. They’ve been where you are, and they will appreciate the opportunity to help someone starting out. Every step of this process will make you a better journalist.
4. What do your stories LOOK like?
This is a particularly important question for young writers, who generally assume that because their reporting and craft were good enough for class, they will win the day when competing for work. Bad news: They won’t. Good news: The solution is in your pocket. To wit, every story you develop should be conceived and filed with its visual components in mind — even if it’s images you’ve captured on your cameraphone. Video footage is even better. Drawings, data visualization, graphics… any of these freely accessible assets can give your pitch the momentum to clear even the highest barriers. Take it from Jessica Reed, the Guardian features editor whose “Pitch Clinic” is full of indispensable advice for freelancers and independent journalists. Reed wonderfully expanded on the I-need-visuals concept: “Your story will be read because it’s good, but it can get 10x more readers if it looks good. Make sure your editor is given the tools to make it look good.” Increasingly, in the age of Instagram, the visual is the story. (See National Geographic writer Neil Shea’s persuasive, inspiring testimony to this effect.)
As Reed adds, this instinct isn’t natural to most writers, but it can be learned. My suggestion is to be as deliberate as possible: Don’t leave an assignment without at least 10 photos and one 30-second video that reinforce your story and further enlighten your audience. Photo and broadcast journalists should keep in mind a variation on this practice: Report as many details and as much context as possible to build the most evocative multimedia story you can produce for the web. You’ll be at a formidable advantage against peers betting on their text alone.
5. Where do you want to live?
There are two traditional career paths for journalists starting out: 1. Get hired in a small media market, pay your dues and work your way up to a big market. 2. Go to grad school in a big market; acquire contacts, clips and internships (and sizable debt); and stand a good chance of a landing a big-market job right away. There’s nothing wrong with either model, but they signify a false choice if you’ve already determined you want to work in the Bay Area, or New York City, or if you want to cover wars, or whatever. In that case, just move to where you need to be to be (except for maybe Afghanistan or Syria or South Sudan, unless you know a really good fixer), and build your journalism experience with the opportunities available to you there.
Let’s say you’re in New York, and you don’t want to shell out for J-school, but you also don’t qualify for any of the entry-level jobs that are going to more seasoned or better-connected journalists. Don’t worry about it: Find a job that pays the rent, and build your portfolio one piece at a time in the place you want to be. Freelance as a reporter or editor or stringer — for peanuts, if necessary, but never for free — as you network. Those professionals in Question #3? After a few email exchanges, ask them to coffee and pick their brains in person. The worst they can say is “no.” Most of them, though, will say some form of “yes.”
Either way, is this path challenging? Yes. But they’re all challenging. There are no shortcuts. Journalism is competitive and brutal and quite often exhilarating, and life is too short to await permission or invitations to do exactly what you want to do where you’ve always dreamed of doing it. Don’t overthink it. Just go, hustle, adjust, and you’ll be fine.
6. What’s your specialty?
When I worked as an editor in New York, I had a friend who freelanced as kind of a pop-culture generalist. He started pitching me ideas rooted in his savant-like knowledge of Saturday Night Live. We refined these ideas, one at a time, developing regular features like the “SNL Scorecard,” which immediately triggered strong reactions and discussions among audiences, comedians, industry pros, and even SNL stars themselves. Today, Mike Ryan is arguably the most knowledgeable writer about Saturday Night Live. It’s his specialty — the thing around which he’s developed a loyal following and professional success.
These are specialists at the peaks of their crafts, but keep in mind that they started where all of us do: At the beginning, one sentence, source and story at a time.
I always advise young journalists — especially those who strive to cover culture or sports — to develop a specialty like this. “Specialty” isn’t necessarily synonymous with “beat,” which is a zone of coverage for which a reporter has acquired sources and continuity. “College football” is a beat. Focusing on concussions or opioid abuse or economics in college football — being the foremost authority on one thread in the bigger tapestry — are what makes a specialty. A great contemporary example is Gabriel Sherman’s deep, sustained coverage of Roger Ailes and Fox News (a specialty within the media beat). Masha Gessen is who you turn to when you want incisive, first-hand insights into Vladimir Putin and the scourge of 21st-century autocracy (a specialty within the foreign affairs beat). Adrian Wojnarowski is practically in the head of every team’s general manager in advance of the NBA Draft (a specialty within the pro basketball beat). Editors and readers alike count on them, ensuring a steady flow of stories and — hopefully — job security. While these are all specialists at the peaks of their crafts, keep in mind that they started where all of us do: At the beginning, one sentence, source and story at a time.
Once you’ve honed your news judgment and reporting chops (trust me here: you won’t get anywhere without knowing what defines a story in the first place), consider developing your own specialty as you pay your dues. Start by writing down three specific interests and where you might specialize within them. What coverage do you crave that no one else is doing? Go do it — but keep it accessible. For instance, want to write about superhero movies? Specialize in something unique about superhero movies: Soundtracks, for instance, or fidelity to comic-book storylines. Think about #4, and perhaps factor in photography: Analyze Marvel-movie concept art, or become the Bill Cunningham of cosplay photography. Anything is possible. Dedicate yourself, stay busy, and you’ll build a name for yourself in no time.
Have questions for me? Drop me a line at stvanairsdale [at] gmail [dot] com.
