Thursday, March 16, 2006
Life, and me, and stuff
The latest: I have a job interview Monday with the Lebanon Daily Record. I'm not sure I'll even be offered the job (it involves some design/editing work and I have only very very little experience in that field). I've also had some problems with errors in the last two newspapers I've worked for. On the other hand, I've also gotten some pretty good clips from the last two newspapers I've worked for and I have experience reporting in small town southwest Missouri. I'm also willing to do anything they ask, I somewhat know my way around a camera and I'm not afraid to work the miserable pisant hours of the day (I do that already even if I don't put it on my timesheet and after all, what else am I going to do? social life? what?).
The upsides: from what I've heard from the editor the position: part education reporter, part Sunday editor, part stagecoach shotgun rider (if Lenny's sick) pays better than my wages right now, at least $500 per year more. At least for a little while I might end up living with my grandparents 30 miles away from the newspaper and I imagine at this point I'd try to find a place to live in their town largely to have loved ones nearby, that's definitely been missing from my life these last 7 months. Maybe they'd even let me help them out with housework and yardwork. And grandma's a much better cook than I.
Downsides: I'm not sure that a smaller daily would be any less stress than a bigger one. I mean the workload would probably still be there, even if the push for the bigger stories or the competition isn't. I'm not sure what difference that makes, or how much of that is the cause of so many of my stupid errors, beyond the errors that creep in when I don't adequately accuracy check my stories before shipping them off. After all, the deadline for the Daily Record simply changes from 5:30 p.m. to noon, so the pressure's still there, particularly if something were to happen at 11 and I needed to get it finished and in by noon.
I also, and I know how some of my readers feel about this, feel at some level like leaving the Globe is admitting a failure on my part to make it at the Global level. Despite my mediocre career path and only-just-above-average academic performance I don't like admitting failure. I've never dropped a class, even when I felt like I should, and I still made it through the end, even though I know for a fact I didn't deserve the inflated grade I recieved.
Even worse would be to leave daily newspapers all together or journalism. It's the one thing I've built my professional life around. I've made contacts, worked my network, went to the right school, took on the good internships, went out there to sell myself on internships (and hopefully didn't dissapoint enough to lose my chances at the San Antonio Express-News), traveled a lot farther than I actually thought I would and reaped the benefits. I also learned that I knew nothing about big-city dailies when I got my first big-city daily internship, nor my first job. It's not something I even want to consider doing.
My thoughts: Leaving a big-city for a smaller-city daily and getting the design experience might eventually make me more marketable, even if the Daily Record pays a lot more attention to the mundane bog of city politics (20 inches on the budget numbers, anyone?) and the smarmier side of the news features (with plenty of "execution at dawn" photos, none of which I want to take and would desperately try to avoid, along with the "hold that trophy, smile and pose!" pictures). I figure someone with some design, reporting and photography skills might be impressive to future employers, if only they'd be kind enough to not draw too much attention to the whopping longevity of my career at the Globe (actually of the last eight to leave the Globe I'd be fifth for career length).
On the other hand, there's lots of people who've pulled those skills together, so I doubt how remarkable that really is. What I'd really like to do (this is really hazy, I actually don't have a 5, 10 or 15 year plan) is find myself in a city of maybe 150,000 - 180,000. Quite literally I'm thinking Knoxville, Tenn. It was a nice city. Joplin is about 45,000 and Toledo was about 300,000. New York City is about 8,000,000, for comparison.
And that's about as far as I got. The interview is Monday. They may reject me flat out, which would certainly clear up some of those details. It would be nice, however, to have some option out there. I mean right now my options are a) stay at the Globe b) make use of my only other connection to find a job if there is one in weeklies or semi-weeklies c) look for another job, an option which seriously scares me or d) flag down a passing UFO and hope for a fresh start.
Here's to what the future holds. In the meanwhile, wish me luck.
The upsides: from what I've heard from the editor the position: part education reporter, part Sunday editor, part stagecoach shotgun rider (if Lenny's sick) pays better than my wages right now, at least $500 per year more. At least for a little while I might end up living with my grandparents 30 miles away from the newspaper and I imagine at this point I'd try to find a place to live in their town largely to have loved ones nearby, that's definitely been missing from my life these last 7 months. Maybe they'd even let me help them out with housework and yardwork. And grandma's a much better cook than I.
Downsides: I'm not sure that a smaller daily would be any less stress than a bigger one. I mean the workload would probably still be there, even if the push for the bigger stories or the competition isn't. I'm not sure what difference that makes, or how much of that is the cause of so many of my stupid errors, beyond the errors that creep in when I don't adequately accuracy check my stories before shipping them off. After all, the deadline for the Daily Record simply changes from 5:30 p.m. to noon, so the pressure's still there, particularly if something were to happen at 11 and I needed to get it finished and in by noon.
I also, and I know how some of my readers feel about this, feel at some level like leaving the Globe is admitting a failure on my part to make it at the Global level. Despite my mediocre career path and only-just-above-average academic performance I don't like admitting failure. I've never dropped a class, even when I felt like I should, and I still made it through the end, even though I know for a fact I didn't deserve the inflated grade I recieved.
Even worse would be to leave daily newspapers all together or journalism. It's the one thing I've built my professional life around. I've made contacts, worked my network, went to the right school, took on the good internships, went out there to sell myself on internships (and hopefully didn't dissapoint enough to lose my chances at the San Antonio Express-News), traveled a lot farther than I actually thought I would and reaped the benefits. I also learned that I knew nothing about big-city dailies when I got my first big-city daily internship, nor my first job. It's not something I even want to consider doing.
My thoughts: Leaving a big-city for a smaller-city daily and getting the design experience might eventually make me more marketable, even if the Daily Record pays a lot more attention to the mundane bog of city politics (20 inches on the budget numbers, anyone?) and the smarmier side of the news features (with plenty of "execution at dawn" photos, none of which I want to take and would desperately try to avoid, along with the "hold that trophy, smile and pose!" pictures). I figure someone with some design, reporting and photography skills might be impressive to future employers, if only they'd be kind enough to not draw too much attention to the whopping longevity of my career at the Globe (actually of the last eight to leave the Globe I'd be fifth for career length).
On the other hand, there's lots of people who've pulled those skills together, so I doubt how remarkable that really is. What I'd really like to do (this is really hazy, I actually don't have a 5, 10 or 15 year plan) is find myself in a city of maybe 150,000 - 180,000. Quite literally I'm thinking Knoxville, Tenn. It was a nice city. Joplin is about 45,000 and Toledo was about 300,000. New York City is about 8,000,000, for comparison.
And that's about as far as I got. The interview is Monday. They may reject me flat out, which would certainly clear up some of those details. It would be nice, however, to have some option out there. I mean right now my options are a) stay at the Globe b) make use of my only other connection to find a job if there is one in weeklies or semi-weeklies c) look for another job, an option which seriously scares me or d) flag down a passing UFO and hope for a fresh start.
Here's to what the future holds. In the meanwhile, wish me luck.
# posted by Solon : 8:32 PM
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