November 2008

Monday: 10 a.m. I receive a text from my cousin informing me of three reporter openings in my area. The positions are at two newspapers I interned at while in college and I’m certain I made a good impression at both. I e-mail my cover letter, resume and clips immediately.

4 p.m. A local publishing company I blindly sent my information to a few weeks ago finally responds. According to the editor, my creativity and persistence will get me far. Just not now, with his company.

Tuesday: 11:30 a.m. My former college professor returns an e-mail I sent her, begging for advice. In short – PR is the devil. Stay on the light side with journalism, no matter how poor you are.

3 p.m. My first student loan payment arrives in the mail.

Wednesday: 12:30 a.m. Facebook’s newsfeed alerts me that two of my college alums, who worked on our student newspaper with me, have landed amazing industry jobs in large markets.

1 a.m. Change Facebook work info to –

Employer: Best Publication in the World

Position: Creative, Ingenious Writer

Time Period: Now until forever

Description: My job is better than yours.

(At least I’m not bitter.)

Thursday: 9:30 a.m. The editor of one of the newspapers I sent my information to on Monday returns my e-mail. Unfortunately, other applicants have more experience than I do, so she can’t hire me at this time.

11 a.m. NYTimes.com News Alert: 240,000 U.S. jobs lost in October.

Friday: 5 p.m. My friend, who graduated college with me, calls to make plans to go out. Dinner, drinks, cover, cab fare – I pass. Damn business majors.

8 p.m. Eat ramen noodles while reading Literary Journalism: A New Collection of the Best American Nonfiction by Norman Sims and Mark Kramer and dream. For dessert – the classifieds.

Write Soon!

♥ JobHunter

Buried beneath the recent headlines about U.S. job losses and home foreclosures are the remnants of my optimism for a reporting career. I’ve been looking for a job for six months. The U.S. unemployment rate hit a 14-year high in October. Ohio – my home state and hopefully future state of employment – reached 7.2 percent in September, up 1.5 percent from a year earlier. As I transition into a life where leftover pizza is not considered breakfast food and sweatshirts are not proper work attire, I ready to lean on my one advantage in this field—I’m young.

Often times, older journalists are harder hit by turbulence in the industry via layoffs and buyouts. New graduates at the bottom of the food chain are spared. (Ah, finally, all my hard work in college took me straight to the bottom – the place to be!) And while headlines may discourage me, journalism positions still exist. Here’s proof. Check out this map of journalism opportunities* in Ohio as of Nov. 13, 2008.

This entry, and the others that will follow, will detail my quest to land a gig in an industry that I love. For those interested, I’m currently taking bets on how long it will take me. Wish me luck!
JobHunter

* Positions include editorial, sales and management within the journalism industry. The information was gathered from  www.journalismjobs.com, www.mediabistro.com and www.indeed.com.

So … I finally decided to get on board this whole Twitter thing. I started one a while ago, but never touched it until just yesterday.

Maybe this post is more directed at Sonya, because I know she’s been tweeting for a while, but for anyone else as well, how useful can Twitter be to your work?

I imagine mine might be a bit limited. I cover police, and I don’t know many cops who are tech savvy enough for it. For biz and political reporting, I imagine it’d be a great resource.

Two interesting points about the election:

*It seems that newspapers bounced back for a day on November 5, when they sold out across the country because people wanted a real keepsake of the historic presidential win.  It won’t keep the industry from hemorrhaging jobs but it’s a nice break from all of the bad news. “Maybe we need an historic election at least once a month,” said Joe Strupp, over at Editor & Publisher.

*While most journalists seemed to love the CNN’s holographic interviews on election night, viewers I’ve talked to didn’t like it so much. Some critics agreed. “The ‘hologram’ technique made the show look shoddy and stupid, and made [Jessica] Yellin look like a well-designed video game character,” said CNET’s Don Reisinger. Engadget’s Joshua Topolsky said “it’s without a doubt one of the most useless and unnecessary pieces of phantasmagoric TV ever enacted.” If this idea wasn’t “viewer tested” before it debuted, it’s something we can all learn from: just because you think something is cool doesn’t necessarily mean your viewers/readers/listeners will.