Q: I'm 54 and will graduate
from college in May. I've done an internship at a business weekly
and worked for the college paper for a year. Is it realistic to
think that I could land a job on a metro daily? Or do I have to
start with a small-town daily to get some experience?
What would be the best approach to convert my 30 years of small-business acumen into journalism?
Larry
A: It seems unlikely that
your nonjournalism experience will trump that of other candidates'
journalism experience applying to metro dailies. The successful ones
will have done some excellent work at mid-sized dailies. Start smaller
and, if your goal is a metro, move a couple of times to get there.
Don't, in the process, have such short tenures that, piled on top of
your earlier, nonjournalism career, editors start to see you as a "job
hopper." And I suggest that you try to do this through business
reporting, where your acumen becomes more of an advantage and where
there is less competition for openings.
