Q: I have worked for the entertainment section of a campus-based newspaper for about a year. And I have decided to seek a summer internship. Unfortunately, all my clips are entertainment-related. Will employers hold that against me, even though the clips are well-written?
Debbie, Oklahoma
A: They will not hold that against you, Debbie, but they will be able to evaluate your work only according to the work you’ve already done. If you are looking for an entertainment internship, which you seem to have oodles of collegiate experience in, no problem.
If you hope to use entertainment clips to get a job covering news, business or sports, you’ll have a problem. The problem is that you’re not showing them how good you are at the thing they’re trying to cover. Sending clips for one type of work, when you really want another, really requires an explanation in your cover letter so you don’t look naive. You can also use that cover letter to explain how you think those clips show you’ll be good in non-entertainment areas.
The big hurdle is this: while good writing may transcend topics, different subject areas can require vastly different types of reporting. As well-written as your clips might be, if they mostly come from previews, reviews and interviews, they don’t say much about how you can handle police news, a public health emergency, a court case or a governmental meeting. The lack they’ll see will be in the variety of reporting experiences.
Broaden your experience. That should be easy to do at a college paper, and this is an issue that will keep coming back until you diversify the types of reporting that go into your clips.
