High School Journalist

Oh, yes. Avoid negativity while you're still feeling your way through the business. Keep your idealism for a while.

Thanks, baddecision. I'd almost forgotten that.

 

Idealism once was the driving force for chumps like me now working the night pagination shift. Had I truly understood the value of some of the suggestions I listed above a couple of decades ago, I wouldn't be so trapped now. My suggestions -- which boil down to "live each day so that it would be OK if it were your last day on earth" and "you must consume experience before you can describe it" -- make all the difference between a passed-by, cement-footed slogger such as myself and one of the greats. Too late for me, but not for this kid.

 

Find a good story. Write 1,000 words. Then, edit it down to 750. Then to 500. Then to 250.

Do a podcast rich with story details we can see with our eyes closed. Blog the best quirky aspect that didn't make your final edit. Post it with one of the photos you shot.

Embed a video you shot of the subject. Tweet a link.


Lunch. Something light.

Repeat.

Three times a week.

For a year.

You'll never be out of work.

 

Why do you hate lunch, JD?

 

Started in the biz at 16. Aside from the work itself, the thing I loved about the newsroom is they were the first adults I'd met who didn't treat me like a kid. So, if you get the opportunity to do the work, approach it with the attitude that the same rules apply to you that apply to the 30-year-old three desks away. If you adopt an adult attitude and set adult standards for yourself, they will treat you like an adult and give you adult rewards, like good assignments. I got a full-time sports writing job at 19. I still saw myself as being a kid and acted like one when I wasn't working, but at work it is an adult world and you have to be one of them to get the most out of it.

 

Best advice I've heard, right there.

 

Copy, print, paste above laptop screen.