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March 2007

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From:
"Bernard L. Stein" <[log in to unmask]>
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Date:
Fri, 30 Mar 2007 07:45:51 -0400
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When you apply for your first job as a journalist, two things are crucial: the cover letter with which you submit your application and your clips. I say this as someone who has hired novice reporters for three decades and has sifted through more than 100 applications for each job opening over that time.

Your cover letter should be tailored to the news outlet, particularly if it is addressed to a community newspaper that is not a household name outside its area of circulation.

Your clips should show that you know how to cover news. Forget your eloquent movie or rock or jazz reviews. No first-timer is going to be hired as a critic or be given the entertainment beat.

You need to choose your three best stories, and those stories better have riveting leads, because the person at the receiving end isn't likely to read more than the first couple of sentences: he or she has 99 other portfolios on the desk to sift through. Once your work lands on the possible interview pile, the editor will return to it and read it more thoroughly. 

Many neighborhood papers will put you through a mini-version of this process just to let you freelance a story without pay, so you face a classic chicken-and-egg situation. How do you gain experience?

The too-often scorned school newspaper is an important part of the equation. When Clyde Haberman, the New York Times columnist, visited my class a couple of semesters ago, the first thing he asked was "How many of you write for the school paper?" He was disappointed when no one responded, and went on to speak about his own tenure as editor of the City College paper. It's what got him to The Times, he said. 

I think The Envoy has become a much better paper this year than it was my first year here (disclosure: its editor was a student of mine, and I've been offering, and she's been taking, suggestions from me to focus it on the Hunter community). Apart from a redesign, what The Envoy needs most is more reporters.

The Word on-line has long been excellent, and I think one of its strengths is the steady supply of stories from Prof. Morris's students. But judging by how few issues the Word in print has published, I would guess that it, too, suffers from a staff shortage. 

My Neighborhood News class offers another opportunity for students to publish their work, in The Hunts Point Express, serving a neighborhood in the South Bronx. (Yesterday I got a call from the Daily News, which wants to pick up a story about the visit of Naomi Campbell to a Hunts Point community center as part of her community service sentence. The city's metro reporters offered blanket coverage of her in Manhattan, but it never occurred to them to go to the Bronx. But people in Hunts Point knew Christina Davis and called her with a tip that led to an exclusive.)

Let me conclude as Prof. Parisi began, with questions for students. Would you like to see more of us teachers make publication a requirement of our production classes, as Prof. Morris does of his? Would you like more faculty involvement in student publications or should we butt out and let you shape them entirely independently? 

Bernard L. Stein


---- Original message ----
>Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2007 21:58:57 -0500
>From: Peter Parisi <[log in to unmask]>  
>Subject: It's 11 p.m. Do you know where your portfolio is?  
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>The sentiment has been expressed on another departmental listserv that
>students are not sufficiently aware of the importance of compiling
>portfolios of clips as part of their preparation to enter the field of
>journalism.
>
>So, HCJ-Lers, some questions:
>
>Are you aware that it really _is_ important to amass a portfolio of
>clips as you work your way through courses and internships?(It_is_;
>it's true.)
>
>More to the point, what are you doing about it? What obstacles are you
>finding? Where are you finding places to publish?
>
>What experience have you had with some of the obvious venues -- The
>Hunter Envoy? the WORD? The WORD in print?
>
>Professor Buddy Stein may have some words to say about taking
>advantage of New York City community weeklies, an area in which he is
>deeply experienced, as editor of the Riverdale Press.
>
>What's happening for you on this front?
>
>Peter Parisi
>
>-- 
>Peter Parisi, Ph.D.
>Dept. of Film & Media Studies
>Hunter College
>695 Park Avenue
>New York, NY 10021
>212-772-4949
>"The suffering itself is not so bad, it's the resentment against
>suffering that is the real pain." --Allen Ginsberg

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