Monday, November 13, 2006
Quit My Demoralizing Job?
Currently, I cover the top beat (city hall) at a 100,000-circulation local paper. I came here two months ago from a respected, 300,000-circulation paper in the same region. My intention was to stay at the larger paper and work my way up (I was a "tweener" who divided my time writing for both the daily and a weekly edition.). But out of the blue, I got a call from the smaller paper, which asked me to apply for the city-hall post. Since my goal was to become a daily reporter, and since the beat seemed interesting and challenging, I took it.
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Things have been rough at the new paper. Despite its big-city location and 100,000 circulation, the owner does not invest in the newsroom. We are extremely short-staffed, and we have virtually no resources. (We didn't even have the Internet until a couple of years ago!) The editors are inexperienced, underpaid and overworked, as are most of the reporters.
Before accepting the job, I was aware of this scenario. But I figured the beat and the daily experience were worth the move. I do enjoy covering city hall, and I do well as a daily reporter. But I am not growing here. There is virtually no editing, and the little editing that I get often times makes my stories worse. I don't have time to do longer, investigative or enterprise stories because there is no time. Since we're very understaffed, I sometimes have to cover stories well outside of my beat. Plus, I think the quality of the paper's writing and coverage is awful, which demoralizes me.
I've been thinking about my next move. Ideally, I'd like to work for a daily newspaper in Manhattan. I'm also considering J-school to study new media to place myself in a better place in this field. (I don't have a journalism background.) But I'm wondering if new-media reporters actually report and write their own stories and have opportunities to do longer, public-service stories, or if they just write headlines and edit. I've heard mixed reviews.
So my questions are: Should I get a J-degree? Or should I stay at this paper and apply to New York papers in about a year?
Sara
Whoa! You've got a lot of things going on here. My initial reaction is worrying that a resignation after just two months is going to throw a kink into your career. It sounds as though you consider this to be your first real daily-newspaper job, and I would fight hard to keep my place and move ahead.
You're smart to look at new media and wise to be wary of getting pigeonholed on the production side when what you really seem to like is street reporting. Shade your learning toward the news-gathering end of new media. That means some digital photo and audio, blogging and instant updates. Learn on the job. Don't wait until you get accepted into a graduate program.
I'm sure you've already thought about studying new-media reporting in a Manhattan master's program. Try to hold it together until you can take the next solid step. You've worked too hard to go skidding off your career path.
Use your mentors to keep your morale up. You'll make it.
Coming Tuesday: An experienced reporter wonders whether she should join an organization to get more networking contacts.
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