Q: I have a news-editorial journalism degree from Missouri, which is supposed to be one of the best schools in the country. I have excellent references and experience, including a Dow Jones internship in online editing at the Wall Street Journal and experience writing, editing and designing for a daily competing paper.
But I’ve spent the last two years working on a master’s degree in history — in journalism history, to be specific — in which I’ve written a thesis focused on journalism and a 35,000-word academic encyclopedia article covering the press in the United States. But it seems that recruiters constantly tell me that I have been out of the field for too long, or are utterly unimpressed by a master’s degree, or don’t regard it as "serious work." What could I be doing wrong in presenting myself?
Robert
A: A master’s degree, on top of an undergraduate journalism degree, doesn’t do much in the eyes of many editors to advance your journalistic skills. Your knowledge is deeper and you have new ways of tackling problems and projects, but your journalistic skills do not get tested and tempered in a classroom in quite the same way they would in a newsroom.
So, I would not lead with the master’s degree as being a prime qualification. And, while a 35,000-word article for an encyclopedia is a big achievement, most editors blanch at the sight of such things in their newsrooms.
So, you have spent some time learning and building some qualifications, but they are not ones where editors see a direct application in the newsroom.
I would see what I could do about turning some fresh clips so that you have some recent journalism to back you up. I would do what I could to show editors how the skills and knowledge you have learned in graduate school apply in the newsroom.
When they are hiring, editors want people who are practicing journalists, not people who are studying it. So, although you certainly aren’t "out of journalism," they may think so because you’ve been out of the newsroom. So, get back into the newsroom.
Be proud of what you’re doing academically, but understand that many editors do not see it as something that gives you tools you can immediately apply on the beat or the copy desk.
