advice from the pros

On my visit home to see friends and family, I met with the Executive Editor and the Editorial Editor of The Birmingham News. I figured any hand-shaking and networking I can do in the newspaper world can only help me.

Here's some of what I took away:

First, the Editorial Editor loved my plan to become fluent in Spanish. I hadn't really considered how much that might boost my marketability, but when I told him how I was heading to Honduras, his eyes lit up, and he said that is the best thing I could do right now. In fact, they had been looking to hire a Spanish-speaking reporter, and had a tough time finding one. Then on my way out, he told me to keep in touch when I get back to the States...

The main man of the newsroom had such a fresh perspective on the path of a new reporter. Six months ago, he would have told a recent grad to follow the traditional path that we all have ingrained in our heads: start at a small-town daily, then move up to a mid-sized paper then on to the big times. Any experience other than daily experience is "discounted," it doesn't mean as much, if anything at all.

But that has all changed just in the last few months. He said he couldn't believe he was telling me this, but while I am pursuing a job at a mid-size daily, consider other outlets - Web sites, alternative weeklies. You don't have to take the traditional route anymore, because the newspaper world is changing so rapidly and by the time we make it to the "big times," that will mean something completely different. Newspapers might not look like they do now or approach stories as they do now. A diverse and unique career approach might make a reporter more attractive, showing that she anticipates the changes at papers, can take a different approach at reaching an audience, for example.

That kind of experience is no longer "discounted." Where he once would look at an applicant and write her off is she spent time at an alternative weekly, for example, he now would be much more inclined to see what she can bring to the daily paper.

As someone conditioned to take the traditional route - and coming from a strong grad school where the pressure is on to land a job at a respected (and big) daily paper, while veering from that path gets scoffs and disappointing "maybe she can't handle a daily" head shakes - this forced me to look at it differently. Although, when I close my eyes and think of where I want to be, I can picture the buzz and chaos of a daily newsroom, there isn't just one single path to get there. I think that was the point he was trying to make. Keep trying for that job, he said, but while you are, consider a less traditional route. No longer is that likely to hurt you - and may help - in the long run, and ever-changing world of news.

He also reminded me that I am in my mid-20s and I should enjoy myself and live somewhere I am happy (which often times is not the small town in middle America with a small daily paper).

Now I wonder if other editors are thinking that way, or if I veer from the mapped out path, stepping up the stairs of circulation size, I would find myself scoffed out of the running for a job at a daily. I admit I am a little nervous about considering it and in my own snobby way don't equate other jobs with daily papers, but now have it in my mind to ask other editors I meet. What would you say if my work experience included two years at an alternative weekly or a news web-site, rather than say, the 50,000 circulation Po Dunk Daily News?

Then I have to really look at my own desires. Do I picture a daily newsroom because I really want that pace, lifestyle, pay, stress? Or do I picture it because I am supposed to, because I think that has more cred than other outlets and that I need to do that to be a "legitimate" reporter? If I love writing and reporting (truthfully more than I love news itself), do I have to be at a daily newspaper (especially considering that fewer and fewer people even read their dailies, and rather are turning to said Web sites and alternative weeklies)?

The editor told me that although newspaper jobs are tight right now, it's not a bad time to be looking for reporting jobs. It's just a different time, and you have to be open to the different paths. Again, I am back to the fact that we are given so much choice that it's often stifling.

[Sidebar: Another thing he told me was that he used to be staunch about the paper's 3 to 5 years experience requirement for hiring new reporters. He said that is beginning to relax across the industry as papers are realizing we young reporters are the ones that are often key to reaching a younger more diverse audience. Duh. Now give us jobs, people. (And in the toot-my-own-horn category...) He also said wherever I look for work, just get an interview. I come across well - passionate, experienced, eager, personable - in the interview, he said, where on paper I could get lost among candidates with more requisite years of work under their belts.]