I hear all the time it's going to be an asset in the future to be well rounded as a journalist. Does this apply to someone with experience in both copy editing and reporting?

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I have done both and enjoy both but am always told it would come off negatively as indifference if I said that in an interview. I graduated from j-school in May and have been a reporter at a small daily for several months now. Previously, I was a Dow Jones Newspaper Fund intern and heavily involved as a reporter and editor at my college daily.

Out of the blue, I was recently contacted by a major metro paper asking me to apply for a copy-editing position, and I'm torn. Colleagues tell me I shouldn't unless I'm absolutely certain I would rather copy edit. Regardless of what I decide, does it really have to be that black and white?

I know the simple answer is I have to pick one, but in doing so, does it sound bad to recruiters if I say I enjoy the other discipline as well? Maybe it's just me, but it has seemed like the variety on my resume in terms of copy editing and reporting has been more of a hindrance than an asset. Thanks for doing this column, and I'd appreciate any advice you have.

Dan

Flexibility is more of an asset once you are in a job than it is when you are looking for one.

Editors often interview trying to see where you fit into the newspaper's needs, current or future. A person who has more than one "fit" might come across as being indifferent or undecided, as you say.

Once hired, though, the person who can spring up and help in different parts of the newsroom -- or in developing areas -- is seen as helpful, adaptable and flexible.

Joe Grimm

The particular problem for the reporter/editor choice is that there are so many more reporting resumes than editing resumes on the editor's desk. It can be more difficult for a staffer to move from the desk to the street than the other way around. Essentially, filling a reporting job with an editor makes the job of hiring that much tougher. So, editors may think of you as being just one or the other and be reluctant to move you from editing to reporting.

The strategy, of course, is to be very, very good so that they'll move you to keep from losing you.

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Coming Thursday: He'd like to get into a part-time journalism master's degree program, but he is afraid it will tie him to one place for too long.

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