“Each of us should make the most of our lives. We should give life our best — let us use our lives more wisely to chase our dreams, find our true purpose and be as happy and successful as possible.”
— Malcom X

As I was reading Paul Conley’s latest post about skills students need to get hired, something clicked. He references another post he made that’s worth reading: Folks with resumes need not apply. The more important post, however, is the three things j-school students need to know to get hired.

I agree with that entire post. But here’s the thing that clicked:

Few things tell me less about a prospective hire than clips from a college newspaper.
Yet most of the students I meet use clips as the center of their job-searching efforts. The students, apparently at the urging of teachers, are often quite proud of their clips. And they have come to believe that the perfect clip will lead to the perfect entry-level job.

…

Most importantly, a clip ties a student to the part of the industry that is least likely to hire him — print. When a student hands a clip to a publishing executive today he’s likely handing it to someone who has already laid off a slew of print-only reporters. It’s an exercise in absurdity for students to market themselves as talented print journalists to executives who have laid off talented print journalists by the thousands.

I learned this relatively early in my job search from an editor who was impressed with my resume, mostly by my demonstrated new-media experience. But she raised one extremely valid point about my package. In her words, “Why is this carbon-based?” Good question. Why was I, of all people, applying on paper?!

As soon as she said it, I knew she was right. It was the catalyst I needed to organize my professional work online. The next week, I registered a domain, started my blog, uploaded my resume and posted my clips online in one central location.

As I sent out a few more applications for jobs or e-mails to editors inquiring about postings or openings, it was that site I sent. Usually with the note itself serving as the cover letter and an attached resume document. I always offered to send a package of clips. But I was not once asked to.

Until about two weeks ago, I’d still been collecting the papers/tear sheets with my stories at the paper where I work now. Thinking, of course, I should keep my clips, at least the best of them, in print.

Now, I’m going to recycle the papers when I finish reading them unless it’s a presentation I think comes across better or particularly well in print, and even then, I’m saving it for my own benefit. Because, duh, it dawned on me, there really is no need to do that. The job I will apply for next is not going to be one where printed clips are expected. If they are, it’s not the job for me.

In fact, none of the papers I actually interviewed with when looking for a job post-graduation ever saw my clips in print before my in-person interview. A large part of me thinks it wasn’t those clips that got me the interview.

Paul Conley is absolutely on target. If all you have to show for yourself after your undergrad experience is a few solid clips from a newspaper, then you’re wasting your ink. (As well as several thousand dollars in tuition at a school that obviously didn’t adequately prepare you.) Seriously.

People will be far more impressed even by a blogspot or wordpress account that keeps a running list of your latest stories than by a stack of copies that will likely end up in some filing cabinent to be stumbled upon several months later and then tossed (and hopefully recycled). At least post your resume online. But why not step beyond that? At a minimum start a blog about something you care about. It’s free, and it’s easier than ordering a coffee at Starbucks. Then start making some videos or podcasts, start experimenting. Keep a flickr account. Organize your interests in del.icio.us. Etc. Show that you have mastered the technology that news organizations are moving towards not the very thing they’re running from. That will help you land the elusive job you covet.

And as for the alternate story forms Conley talks about in the latest post? You better believe this is important, whether you are writing for print or online. At every paper I interviewed with, I was asked how I would either re-do a story they had already run in an alternate way, OR given a hypothetical story and asked how I’d present it in a unique way, OR asked to give an example of a time where I had opted for a non-traditional story form.

And guess what? I’ve done a lot of non-traditional stories since starting my job at a newspaper. In tomorrow’s paper, I have six “charticles” running as a package for an annual award given instead of a linear story. This is real.

So, I’m really not sure how I feel about the photo choice for the dominant at jconline right now. I normally avoid discussing things like this here. But as I feel this is going to be an issue not just for my paper but for many papers and news outlets, I felt it was worth my 2¢.

The more I think about it, the more I think my gut reaction was the one most people will have. And that kind of concerns me. As much as I hate to admit it.

I saw the video sent to NBC tonight. I mean, literally, for about 10 minutes everyone in the newsroom stopped what they were doing, heading where they were walking, saying what they were saying. All eyes transfixed by the video of the would-be killer.

That included the photos of him pointing a gun at the camera. One of which is now staring at me, a handgun pointed at me, from the front page of my newspaper’s Web site.

My initial reaction was, “Woah, shit!” I was seriously taken aback by it. And I knew exactly what it was. Seems the other visitors have a similar reaction. The first comment reads: “Why put up such a horrible picture like that on your front page of the website? Couldn’t you of at least used a different one of him?”

I have to say I agree. Ethically speaking — and we actually had a mini-discussion on the ethics of airing that video before NBC ever said they would — I am uncomfortable with that photo. First of all, it’s disturbing to me, an adult who has a pretty high tolerance for being disturbed. But something about having someone I know has killed 32 other people pointing a gun at me really disturbs me.

Now, imagine I’m not me, hardened to a lot of news and a lot of horrible things. Imagine I’m 13, scanning the Web and maybe stopping by the newspaper site for a current events assignment for class. Or, worse, imagine I’m one of the parents, siblings, friends of one of the kids who did die at that gun point. On second thought, I really don’t want to imagine it, because I know seeing those photos would be painful.

I’m not saying don’t show the public. I would have run the video on my newscast. I would have run a photo on my Web site and in my paper. But the one of the gun pointed directly at the camera is going too far, I think.

A preliminary scan of other news sites:

• The New York Times has him with the hammer & a connection to some movie posted in a blog.
• CNN has the same photo as the J&C as its dominant. Interesting especially because of the prominent NBC stamp on it. They’ve also got the video posted. (Man that’s one hell of a lucky scoop for NBC.)
• MSNBC has text on the spread eagle, shoot-em-up pose.
• Washington Post has his smiling face from the video as its main art.
• IndyStar has a close up of him taken from the video. (Clicking inside you can see they have a smaller photo of him pointing the gun at the camera, but it’s not the same, OMG! IN YOUR FACE, photo.)
• Chicago Tribune has his spread eagle pose with guns off to the sides. (But they’ve got the other photos in a gallery if you click through.)
• The Cleveland Plain Dealer has the story about the package, but it’s still under a photo of the crowd mourning.
• The Beacon Journal doesn’t even mention the story except as one of the headlines in its nation/world link list.
• The Columbus Dispatch leads its page with sports, but if you scroll down, there’s yet another photo of the guy pointing a gun at the camera. Again not as in your face.
• The Detroit Free Press has the spread-eagle pose, but it’s not just the photo, it’s a screen capture with the MSNBC graphics on bottom?
• The Roanoke Times has the memorial for those killed as dominant.

Take a look at these front pages from today.

Maybe it’s because all the time we spent analyzing front pages, especially front pages across the country when major breaking news occurred, in news design last semester. Maybe I’m just weird. But it is one of my favorite things to do to look at newspaper’s side-by-side and compare how they handle such stories.

It is such a gut-wrenching story and one people are just drawn to. Yesterday, I heard about it walking past a professor’s office as she was pulling up CNN.com. Then, when I walked into the j-school office, the entire room was transfixed, all eyes on the coverage. Even today, I was on the phone with one of my regular sources and he asks me, “I haven’t been around a TV today. What’s the latest news on the shooting?” And I told him what I knew (just from watching MSNBC in the background of our newsroom and periodic refreshing of Google news) and pointed him to jconline for the latest updates, including the Purdue connection.

Our front page, which rarely gives prominent play to non-local stories, was dominated by the massacre. With local flavor/reaction. Tomorrow’s front page will again be dominated with the fall out from the story — including a few Purdue grads who were among those killed, as well as other locals with Va. Tech ties.

Anyway, thanks to Poynter for pulling that list together. There’s also a good, detailed analysis of the fronts. I particularly found the comments about The Wall Street Journal vs. Canada’s National Post interesting:

Two of North America’s national newspapers provide the strongest contrast of how to report the shootings. Canada’s National Post devoted the entire page to the story, reversing out its flag and all the text. The headline command attention; demanding that readers delve deeper into the stories. By contrast, The Wall Street Journal put the story atop its ‘What’s News’ briefs.

If you want to see more, there’s always Today’s Front Pages, which also has an analysis of today’s pages. (There is no permalink, so hopefully that link holds for a little bit.) It reads:

Newspapers all over the world share a universal truth today: No matter what else is happening, the shooting deaths of 33 students at Virginia Tech made Page One.

For Virginia newspapers, no headline was too bold, no photo too large. …

Elsewhere around the nation, oversized, stark, often all-caps headlines told the story:…

“The best career advice to give the youg is, ‘Find out what you like doing best and get someone to pay you for doing it.’”
— Katharine Whiteborn

Or as I have said before, “I don’t get paid enough to hate my job.” I wouldn’t be doing it if it wasn’t what I truly felt I should be and honestly want to do with my life.

A bonus quote on the same topic:

“Our world is incomplete until each of us discovers what moves us — our passion. No other person can hear our calling. We must listen and act on it for ourselves.”
— Richard J. Leider

Sorry for the lack of updates. The last few weeks, especially last week for some reason, have been pretty hectic and draining on me. I think it might be my attempts to squeeze way too much into too little time. Perhaps that is why it seems time has sped up rather than slowed down as I get more into my job. On the bright side, I had my 90-day review and it went well. Looks like I don’t suck too bad; they’re keeping me around. ;)

A few quick updates, just to catch everyone, including myself, up to speed.

I went home this weekend. Home, home, to Akron, Ohio. It was my mother’s birthday, and I surprised her with an unannounced visit (that took a lot of maneuverability on my part and included working Easter).

The highlights of the weekend included surprising my mom at dinner with flowers (that should have been delivered to her office but the company lost my order!); catching up with my sisters, mom and dad; seeing the Monet in Normandy exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art; hearing a ridiculously funny comic at a comedy club; not dying in perhaps the most narrowly avoided high-speed, late-night highway covered in snow accident of all time; spending time with my dog; hanging out with all my Stater friends; finding out the Stater/KSU student media did awesome in the SPJ regional competition; catching up with all the JMC professors; finally seeing my diploma — four months after graduation.

This morning/afternoon I made the rounds in Taylor Hall talking to all the professors. I swear I was asked at least half a dozen of the same questions related to the Gannett “information center” and how it applies at my paper. Who posts to the Web? Does it go through an editor? What do you post? When? Do you write the same or different for online/print? Who writes the headlines? Are you doing video/shooting stills/doing Podcasts/blogs/etc.? Why/why not? Are other people/citizens doing those things? Who edits them? Do you have all those different “desks”? How does that work? Is it really 24 hours? and so forth.

Then there were the questions more pertinent to me/my daily job: Do you like it? The city? The paper? Your roommates? How about your co-workers — mostly older or younger? how many reporters? who’s your editor? do you like them? What all are you responsible for covering? Is it mostly assigned or school board meetings or do you do more enterprise and issues? What’s a typical day for you? How many hours do you work each week? How many stories do you write? What’s your favorite that you’ve done so far? How long do you think you’ll stay? Where do you think you’ll look next? (The last two questions, just in case my editors happen to read this, which I don’t think they do but you never know, are very premature. I’m about to sign a 12-month lease. This means I intend to stay for at least another year. So relax. I’m not jumping ship.)

I felt like I should have prepared a handout with frequently asked questions. (The last time I felt like that, incidentally, was when I was going through my round of job interviews and I felt as if I was being asked the same half dozen questions or variations on them from every single person.) It was funny because they all asked almost identical questions at first. They all seemed really eager to see how I was faring in the real world. I’ve said before that I think I’m their guinea pig in terms of “how does a KSU graduate with the talents and skills employers say they’re looking for fare when she leaves the confines of college and starts working for a newspaper company?” Sometimes it makes me afraid to answer because I think they might take it at face value and alter their curriculum or something crazy based on my personal experience. At the least, I know from my own classes and hearing about other grads, my job will become an anecdote for their future students.

But I guess, as Jan put it when we met for coffee, they are all journalists — former reporters and editors. Asking questions is what they do best. But seriously, I felt like we were playing 20 Questions about your new job. Still, it was nice to catch up with everyone and hear about the Franklin Hall excitement/confusion/concerns.

It’s also very surreal to be back in the Stater newsroom, a place where I spent the majority of my collegiate career, and not be a part of the paper. When they were all upset about some headline on the Forum page, it was nice to be able to sit there and say, “Ha. Not my problem.” Probably not nice to them. But it was a nice feeling for me not to be responsible for everyone else’s mistakes. I will say having been editor, managing editor and campus editor in college makes me much more appreciative of the work my editors do every day. And I’ve told my editor on a few occasions that I don’t think I’d ever want his job. His response was, “Get one crappy assignment too many, and you’ll change your mind.” We’ll see about that. In the meantime, as much as I loved being editor and being able to execute my vision for the paper/Web site, I really appreciate that my job now has me answering for me not 100+ other kids who may or may not care as much as I do.

OK. Bed time. I’m heading in early Tuesday to catch up on e-mail and messages from Friday through today before my day really picks up. I promise to try and do a better job updating this week.

“If you want to build a ship, don’t herd people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”
— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“Each of us has the right and the responsibility to assess the roads which lie ahead, and those over which we have traveled, and if the future road looms omnious or unpromising, and the roads back uninviting, then we need to gather our resolve and, carrying only the necessary baggage, step off that road in another direction.”
— Maya Angelou

My God, get over yourself.

University officials say organizing an inauguration is so time-consuming that it can’t be coordinated with a president’s actual arrival on campus.

“It’s a mammoth job,'’ said Kathy Stafford, KSU vice president of university relations and development. “It would have been really, really difficult to get something organized for the fall.'’

(But they can search, screen and choose candidates entirely in private and organize a mass press conference during exam week when no students are around or are too busy studying to be bothered learning who will lead their university into the foreseeable future, all before summer officially landed in Kent. ??)

While the M.A.C. Center can accommodate 6,000 people, the university will adjust the seating for a more intimate setting of 1,500, with about 1,200 faculty, students, government officials, alumni and the like expected to attend the free ceremony at 2:30 p.m.

In his speech, Lefton will lay out his vision for Kent State. So far, he has said he wants to elevate Kent State in the all-important national rankings, shape the university into a national leader and become more selective in what it offers.

I want to know how many students they’re actually expecting to show up. Realistically, they’re probably adjusting the seating because it would look pretty empty with an extra 4,800 empty seats. I’m just sayin’.

All this is modest when compared to that of many other colleges and universities. Some take the inauguration of a new president as a reason to roll out an entire week or month in balls, guest speakers, symposiums, concerts and the like.

“We think it’s an important celebration that the university needs to have to launch the new leadership, but considering how tight money is these days, we don’t want to make a bigger deal out of it than it is,'’ Stafford said.

“We’re trying to keep this much lower key'’ than the university did with its last president, Cartwright, in 1991, she said.

I’m betting most universities don’t wait a year to roll it all out, therefore diminishing the interest in the “new” guy. And even if they do, they’re just being silly, too. And I don’t care what Cartwright’s inauguration was like. Was she entering at a time when tuition had pretty much doubled over the last four years? (Seriously, I paid almost twice as much for my last semester as I did for my first.) Was she entering when college tuition was at an all-time high, especially relative to the average family income? I don’t know the details of her appointment, or care. Honestly guys, I was in first grade. I was more concerned with finding out where spot was always running to than who was heading some university. I’d like to know how much all of this is going to cost, and more important, where that money is coming from. It seems an awful lot of preparation for a guy who likely won’t stick around to see the decade out. Again, I’m just sayin’.

Kent State is poised for great things, [Lefton] has said over and over: “We’re poised to bust through the plexiglass ceiling.'’

Wow, how witty. The ceiling isn’t glass anymore, it’s plexiglass. Doesn’t that make it harder to break?

I also love (read: am confused as to why) that they don’t have story comments on the story. Because I would have liked to see what other community members were thinking.

Some random thoughts before I get off for the night:

• Working Sunday really isn’t that bad, even the 8 a.m. shift when you’re alone in the office babysitting the scanner and updating the site. The drawback is there is pretty much nothing going on that isn’t somehow church-related. I’m not sure how my editor took it when my reaction was, “You want me to… cover a church service?” But luckily, we were able to come up with a pretty sweet angle. I’ll probably post that story in the clips tomorrow when it runs (not because it’s amazing or “clip-worthy” but because I liked it). Add to the mix that it was a holiday and Sunday, and today was the slowest news day of my working life.
• I also work Christmas this year. Both of these holidays I inadvertedly talked myself into working. I should keep my mouth shut.
• I have been wasting too much time on Twitter already. It’s cutting into my Facebook time. ;)
• Speaking of Facebook, I have a question and want to hear some opinions. One of my co-workers, about my age and also a member of Facebook, today told me I was “brave for listing your political leanings” on Facebook. While I’m not a hardcore anything, and I do understand how having my political leanings known could be perceived as a conflict of interest, I’m wondering if it actually matters? I’m not out there crusading for any causes or signing and circulating any petitions. I know it really depends on the organization’s policy, and I would have to ask my editors if it was a definite don’t. But I wanted to hear some thoughts. I’ve discussed this blog with the powers that be at my paper, and we kind of came up with some ground rules. One of them being I can’t go off on political rants. (I wouldn’t anyway. I don’t know enough or care enough about politics to get into it. Most of it’s just semantics anyway.) But I don’t see how admitting I lean liberal is a horrible thing? It’s a bias I know exists and because of that, when dealing with issues where it comes into play, I almost overcompensate for it. I do not cover government where political parties really play any role, and I don’t really ever want to do such reporting. Though, the same person also raised the point that being registered as a member of one party or another falls in the same category. I definitely disagree with that. If I want to vote in a primary election, I have to pick one party or another. Should my job dictate that it is not OK for me to vote in a primary election, which is part of my constitutional rights? (Granted, either way it doesn’t matter this year — we have no contested seats in primaries in the county.) My argument was my Facebook also indicates I am “Christian.” Should that bar me from covering anything that has to do with religion because I have stated publicly what camp I stand in? I don’t know. But thought it was an interesting topic to bring up.
• I have pretty much finished reading Somebody Told Me and can already tell that I am a stronger writer because of it. I think I am more aware of the nuances of word choice and descriptive details after noticing how effortlessly he weaved them in and impressed me. Seriously, at several points I was jealous of his talent at finding the perfect words and phrases to describe people, places, actions or even ideas. They say reading makes you a better writer. Anyone wanting to write, I recommend reading the articles in that book.
• Currently, I’m reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. I really like it so far. I read one of the quotes on the book that said it was like the Sound and the Fury meets the Catcher in the Rye. I agree, and think it’s equally as good as both of those classics.
• All of this reading is part of my effort to get through the mountain of books I have purchased but not had time to read. It is actually getting ridiculous in that I am out of room on my shelves for anymore unread books. And I really miss visiting Borders. So I need to clear this queue quickly. I also really want to sign up for the local libraries, but I can’t because I feel guilty looking at the stacks of unread books for which I’ve actually paid.
• At the end of this week is my 90-day mark at my job. This means I’ll be eligible for health insurance and all that fun stuff. That is, as long as they don’t think I suck too bad and decide, eh, it’s not working out. (The first 90 days are “probationary.”) I looked over my review checklist already, and it looks like I’ll be sticking around. So yay for not being horrible at journalism and not failing at my first job. I know it’s silly, but I have a tendency to worry about these things.
• Also, I can’t believe I’ve only been here three months. It seems like I’ve been here for only a few weeks and also like I’ve been doing this for years. It’s hard to describe. There is still so much unconquered territory, even just on my own beat. (In my defense, I’m responsible for something like two dozen school corporations spread out across 10 counties, each with several schools.) But I’m also taking on more responsibilities here and starting some new projects. It’s also a reminder that I’ve been gone nearly a semester from the Stater, and yet that world still turns without me. God, so much to learn!

That’s all I’ve got. What, like that isn’t enough?