So, I probably shouldn’t perpetuate links to stories from my past that are less than stellar, but oh well. I will do so for the sake of showing those just starting out that everybody starts somewhere. And for myself, to remind me how far I actually have come.

Someone hit this blog by searching for “Meranda Watling” on Google. (I am still always curious about why random people search for me, but it’s one of those things I’ve come to accept.)

I’ve mentioned before what comes up on this search, but it’s been awhile since I Googled myself, so I clicked on the link in my counter to see if anything new or cool popped up. No such luck.

After the expected top hits — MerandaWrites, my LinkedIn profile, my ClaimID — comes the Stater stuff. Mainly, a list of my articles (though, not all of them as we switched hosts and systems half-way through my sophomore year and never moved the archives).

Now, let me start by saying, seven months into my first real job I have grown a lot, but I still have much, much, much more growing to do as a person and a reporter. I realize that, and anyone at this level of the game who doesn’t think they have much to learn is delusional.

I think, actually, that’s what makes reading my old Stater stories so humbling.

Even as I wince at my blunders in these, some of my first stories ever, the practical experience I now have keeps my brain thinking, “If I did this story today, I would …” And I think that’s great. It’s a sign I’m learning. I wonder what I’ll think three years from now of the way I covered the budgets this fall, my first time covering them, or next fall how I’ll feel about the round of first day of school stories I just did as I search desperately for more new angles.

Some of these stories are pretty horrible. Allow me to introduce the lead/first-five-graphs (the holy grail of whether a story flies or flops at the J&C) of one of the articles I wrote during RPA about the fire chief being a finalist for another job:

Kent Fire Chief Jim Williams has been named one of 10 finalists for the fire chief position in Delaware.

Delaware, located in Central Ohio north of Columbus, is among the fastest growing communities not only in Ohio, but in the nation. According to the U.S. Census, Delaware County was listed as the 12th-fastest growing county in the country between April 2000 and July 2005.

In the 2000 U.S. Census, the city of Delaware’s population increased 24.7 percent. In the same period, Kent’s population declined 3.3 percent.

The growing nature of the area is exactly what attracted Williams to apply for the position, he said.

“It’s an opportunity in a growing community,” Williams said. “The department’s a little larger than ours … but it’s a pretty similar department.”

The fact that it was in Ohio also impacted his decision to apply because he said he’d like to stay in the pension system here.

I mean what?! It reads like a Wikipedia entry. I don’t get into the context — that the chief’s been in the job a decade and at the department for another 17 years beyond that — or anything else until I’ve already lost my readers to boredom and confusion (Delaware? They only have on chief for the whole state? huh? Oh, it’s a city in Ohio. Now I get you.) from which they never recover.

To be sure, not all of those stories were horrible. Although this one about a bridge being closed (as far as I know this bridge is STILL closed a year and a half later) and the impact it’s had on the area citizens could stand to be cut, I do like the lead:

Jim Wyle was excited recently when he saw railroad workers on the tracks near the Middlebury Road bridge. Thinking they were there to work on the bridge, he started a conversation.

But the workers were only working on the tracks. In fact, they complained to Wyle, who has lived near the bridge for 15 years, that they had to go all the way around because the bridge was closed.

Wyle’s response?

“How would you like to live here and do that every day?” he asked.

Nearly 80 Kent residents met yesterday afternoon at the Kent American Legion to discuss the problems and delays with the Middlebury bridge and the possible legal action they could take.

The Middlebury bridge, which links the residents to Cuyahoga Falls, Akron and the other side of the city, has been closed because of safety concerns since March 2003, said Gene Roberts, service director for the city of Kent.

OK, so I cheated, that was six graphs. But they weren’t as long and it flowed much smoother. The anecdote really got to the point of the story.

Ironically, I wrote both those stories within a week of each other. I guess that shows, it was hit or miss. In a lot of ways, it still is.

Even now, I have days where I really like the stories I write or interviews that go particularly well. Then, I have others where I feel that nothing I do is any good and I should just scrap it and start over or give up. Sometimes, I even feel that way about different stories running in the same issue. But ah las, I can’t do that.

The beauty of newspaper reporting is that every day you are essentially handed a blank canvas. It’s up to you to figure out how you’re going to paint and fill it that day. And sometimes, when you’re done, you are really happy with the outcome. And other times, when you’re done, you can’t wait for the next day to end so you can forget all about that canvas and start again fresh.

Not everything I produce is going to be great. Although it kills me, I have come to accept that sometimes I’ll miss the mark. Those are the days I hustle to leave before my story’s edited and when I hesitate to open the daily readme memo from our editors to see just how far off I was and whether they noticed.

But you know what? Those are the stories that teach me the most. They’re the ones I come back to as I grow and say, “OK, knowing what I know now, how would I approach this differently?” Then, the next time sometime like that comes along, I know better and my work is better. Give me a few years to get a few “could have been better” stories out of the way. I’ll be a more humble and effective reporter for it.

When I first started working at the Daily Kent Stater, I remember I was absolutely petrified talking to strangers.

It wasn’t that I was shy so much. I could get up in front of my classes and give presentations without a sweat, and I gave regular pep talks to my softball team. I could dance and cheer with the sports teams and get up on stage in drama club. I could stand before a room and put out my controversial opinion and even debate and defend it reasonably well. But I couldn’t ask the clerk at Borders to help me find a book.

My mom used to be so annoyed because I refused to walk up to clerks at stores or even call and order a pizza. The summer before college, I made HER spend hours on the phone with financial aid because I was so scared of calling strangers and sounding dumb. It was painful for me. I mean, painful to the point of tears. I remember her reminding me of this when I picked journalism as a major.

In fact, a large part of my choice of journalism was to overcome this, I guess the best term is, “shyness.” It took me a long time to be able to pick up the phone and just make the call. I still sometimes pick up a phone and hang it up two or three times before I follow through, confident I have done enough background to ask intelligent questions and not come across as a fool. (I’ve been told this is more common than you think among journalists.)

My first reporting job at the Stater was as a part of the print beat reporting course. We were each assigned a beat we would cover for the paper for the semester. We’d answer to student editors and our unedited work would be graded by the professor. One of the things we had to do was come up with story ideas and beat contacts each week. My beat — which I adored — was student finance. It was kind basically consumer reporting, but all of it aimed at college students needs and wants.

I knew it was do or die that semester, and I knew I’d have to talk to other students and strangers on a regular basis. So, to get over my fears and to build up a list of story ideas my peers actually cared about, I spent an afternoon walking up to every single person in Risman Plaza and the student center. My script was essentially, “Hi. My name is Meranda Watling, and I’m the new student finance reporter at the Stater. I wanted to talk to you about what you’d like to read about this semester.” The first few people were painful. I had to spend 10 minutes pacing around before having enough courage to approach each person. Gradually, it got easier. It got to the point where I could walk into the student center or cafeteria and know who would talk to me, where I didn’t even think twice about asking a stranger for a few minutes of their time and where I didn’t take it personally when people turned me down. My script was essentially the same except I’d sub in illegal downloading, identity theft, saving money, etc. My stories were always better for this. I ALWAYS found a way to get real people in and make them the central focus of my stories. That was something I really focused on with my reporters when I went on to editing.

Now it’s full circle and I’m the reporter again, and at times, I feel like the girl pacing around the student center. I sometimes get nervous approaching strangers, and it’s grown increasingly difficult to find the right strangers. (Man how I miss the days of knowing where the art students hung out and where to find business majors, where I could time residence hall kids and commuters to the time of day and the cafeteria of choice. It made finding the right sources so much easier.) Now, my community is bigger. But finding the right “real people” (as we call the impact sources) is just as important. And I still strive to include them in my stories.

This week I’ve been working on a story where I’ve struggled to find the people. It’s about an increase in subsidized housing and families moving down here and the impact it’s had on the schools in one community. I wrote the story without any of those families. And my editor gave it back. It needed those voices, he told me. I knew it, but I was scared of going out there to find them. Not scared of the people, but scared of their reaction, scared of tripping over my words or insulting them or saying the wrong thing or saying it in the wrong way. (I only half laughed when my editor cautioned “be careful” when I go and when one of the other reporters told me she knew where the complex was because the police just had a meeting about how to clean it up. That’s always reassuring.)

The first time I drove out there, nobody was out. I mean not a single soul in either of the complexes at the center of my story. There were bikes scattered from end to end, abandoned on sidewalks and near doors, but not a single adult or child visible. It was 98 degrees, no wonder. I was prepared to say, “I tried.” But my editor wouldn’t hear it. He held the story and sent me back. This time, knowing I couldn’t fail, I went at a different hour and waited until I saw a couple with a few kids in tow. I mustered up all the confidence I could and clouded out the misgivings of that girl pacing the student center plaza. I got out of my car and approached them. The woman, at first apprehensive, talked to me outside on her front stoop. She was exactly what I was looking for, had kids in the schools, had moved here recently from Chicago and so forth. It wasn’t so hard. I’d just built it up in my mind.

No matter how uncomfortable I am doing something, I didn’t become a reporter to be comfortable. In fact, as I said before, one of my motivations was to break out of my comfort zone, which is necessary to grow. I have. I do every day. Whether it’s going to court for the first time (which I did this week) or calling a parent who lost a child (which I almost cried over when I did the first time last summer), those are the new experiences that make journalism a thrill, that help make me more confident.

I’ve always said that I’ll stay in a job as long as I’m still learning. That’s always been my threshold for when I will know it’s time to leave. This week has only proven again to me how much I have to learn. And the truth is, that’s what keeps it exciting.

Yesterday was hard.

When I came back from my school board meeting Wednesday night I couldn’t concentrate. It had nothing to do with the story or meeting. It was because the courts reporter was there cleaning out his desk. He spent much of the day Thursday finishing the job. And then, after a short but touching reception, he walked out of the building where he has worked the past 21 years to launch a new career.

It was hard on me, so I can’t imagine how he felt this morning when he woke up and realized for the first time in more than two decades he no longer works for the J&C, or as a reporter, or in journalism at all. Considering that represents all but about a year of my life, I can’t even begin to imagine.

Besides the entire newsroom at his reception (literally, there was one copy editor still in the newsroom), as proof of what an institution and great reporter he is, the sheriff, police chief, judges, attorneys and former J&Cers all showed up to pay their respects. The police and sheriff’s dept. even gave him plaques. I forget the exact saying but the general gist was “Thanks for your relentless pursuit of the truth.”

I felt silly that I was as sad as I was when I have only known him six and a half months. But you know what? I learned more from Joe in those six months than probably anyone else. He was hands down one of my favorite people. I lucked out that his cubicle was beside mine, because he got to help me with a lot of my dumb questions as I was just starting. All I got to repay him with was a few good laughs and some tech support. He also knows everyone(!) and how to get everything, which I guess tends to happen when you’ve been doing it that long. So he was an invaluable source of advice and knowledge. Not to mention he’s a hell of a reporter and a genuine good man. And you know what, he was still learning new things and chasing a story right up until the clock hit 5 p.m. on his last day. That’s the type of person and reporter I want to be.

I was talking to him before he left about how long he had been there and what has changed and what’s still the same. And he said that in his time he’s seen a lot of reporters come and go and many he can see their face but can’t even remember the name. That makes sense. I mean, 21 years is a long time to be in any one place, especially in this business. There are names I can hardly recall from my internship last summer. But I know that no matter where I go, I’ll always remember him.

What struck me most was what an impact he made. I mean, man, I hope someday to have a job at a place I like enough to stay somewhere two decades. I hope I’m able to make an impact that’s worth so many important people coming out to celebrate my accomplishments and lament my choice to leave.

It’s going to be hard for me to walk into the office today and sit down at my cubicle and not have Joe beside me asking how to fix something or send something or do something on his computer, not to have him telling me about the dumb criminal of the day or asking if I caught the address they just said on the scanner. The only consolation I get that a lot of other J&Cers don’t have is I know I’ll see him again.

See, Joe’s not leaving journalism like many people these days. He’s not being laid off. He’s not being forced out. He’s not jaded to the point that he hates what he does. Instead, he’s starting a new career. And lucky for me (and for the seventh and eighth graders he’ll be teaching), it’s as an English teacher. I keep telling him he can be my deep throat at the school or that I’m going to do a trend story on first year teachers or people who are taking on teaching as a second career and he’s going to be my main source. I’m kidding of course, but I know every time I stop by the school, I’ll make a pit stop by Mr. Gerrety’s room. It’s hard for me to let him go, I can’t imagine how hard it was for him to let go of the J&C.

I feel old. And it has nothing to do with my birthday yesterday.

Though, I will admit I feel sad not to be 21 anymore. I know everyone will think I’m crazy, especially since I’ve already lamented being treated young. But 21 is just a youthful age. It’s like, you have your whole life ahead of you. You can do ANYTHING. And it was a really good year for me. A lot of positive (and a few negative) things happened in my life.

But now, I’m officially 22. The next real birthday that counts for anything is 25. Then my car insurance goes down and I can run for U.S. Representative. Woo hoo. But seriously, I do realize that 22 is still really young, especially for where I am in life.

But why I really feel old has nothing to do with my age.

It has to do with my j-school peers. Over the past several months/weeks I have watched them landing jobs and several, many more than I would expect so soon, moving on to second jobs. Yes, second jobs. While I’m still worrying about my best pals who graduated in May and are still on the prowl, I’m watching Facebook statuses light up with excitement by peers I quit worrying about ages ago because they had a job. And now, they’re moving on. They’ve given their year and a half and they’re trading up.

It’s scary to me, to be honest. They’re all moving on so quickly, some it seems for the sake of moving on, because isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?

My mom came to visit me in Lafayette this weekend. It was the first time she spent any time here. I had fun taking her around, showing her downtown, going to all the must-see and must-eat places. She had fun, and I realized, perhaps for the first time, how much this place has grown on me in just six months. I’ve finally figured out the one way streets and how to pronounce and spell all the Indian names.

I’m already sad at the prospect of leaving it someday. And as I watch my peers galloping toward their futures, I’m scared about how soon that someday might approach. I guess that’s the nature of the beast, right? Most people do move on from their first job within a few years, and those who don’t adopt a new home or get stuck not being able to move up. I’m not ready for either just yet. As I told one of my friends here, I’ll stay as long as I’m still learning new things, as long as there are new things for me to learn. How long that will be, I don’t know. I guess I should just feel lucky that I landed somewhere that I’m not just biding my time waiting for the next best thing to come along (as some people were and have jumped ship as soon as it did come). I really like it here, even the things I hate I can handle. I’m OK with that.

If I ever doubted I did the right thing by graduating early, I don’t any more.

Maybe the job market didn’t suck as bad six months ago. (Though if you’d have asked me then, I’d have told you it was pretty impossible to find a journalism job and I may as well polish my burger-flipping skills.)

Maybe there was less competition. (This was actually, beyond the $8,000 I saved, my main motivation for a December graduation rather than June or August. I reasoned, fewer kids would be on the same schedule, so there wouldn’t be the same glut of unemployed entry-level reporters on the market.)

Maybe I just got lucky. (I think everything happens for a reason. No matter how much it sucks or how horrible it makes you feel, everything has a purpose in your life, even if it’s just to teach you how to cope with disappointment or failure.)

It could have been any of those things and it probably was that and much more. But I wouldn’t trade places with my peers on the prowl for a job now. Not for anything. In fact, their disappointments and struggles are actually depressing me a bit.

Most of the kids I know who graduated with me or when I should have this spring are in internships without job prospects lined up for next month or beyond. They’re mailing out packets and combing journalismjobs.com for any glimmer of the perfect job, or even a job they’re mostly qualified for in a place they wouldn’t mind living.

The kids I don’t talk to regularly keep me updated of their job hunting luck through facebook statuses range from “f* the newspaper industry” to “moving to XXX next month!”

I talked to one friend the other day who has gone on a few interviews and been so close, who got his hopes up only to have them crash down a few weeks later: We don’t have the budget right now. And he’s one of the most talented people I know! I mean seriously guys. If you need a designer, this kids got talent, ambition and intelligence beyond almost anyone else I know.

I’ve also seen some borderline cut-throat tactics going on. I mean, all’s fair in love and war … and job hunting, apparently. There’s been at least one thing I’ve watched and gone, “I could never do that to someone.”

But then, I’ve also talked to people who’ve just heard back from “the first editor who actually took an interest,” and even though they downplay it — who wants to get her hopes up and then have them dashed? — you can see they walk a little taller and have that twinkle in their eye that says, “I don’t suck after all. Someone wants to hire me.”

Then, I remember that feeling. I remember the first conversation I had where I felt like maybe it wasn’t me against the world. I’m pretty sure I rushed my professor’s office for help dissecting the conversation after I hung up. I remember the first editor who contacted me. I remember the first voicemail I got from an editor asking me to come for an in-person interview, and how I played it over and over and over again to be sure I hadn’t missed any details or clues. I remember how much fun it was to read the job ads and imagine myself in cities I’d never heard of, let alone been.

I was telling one of my friends, a May grad with a post-grad summer internship that ends next month, that I kind of miss the excitement that comes with looking for that first job. I mean, you can literally do anything. You can go anywhere. You have no roots, no history holding you back. You have nothing but a few clips from your college newspaper and summer internship, a cover letter you likely wrote at 3 a.m. and a resume you’ve scrutinized so many times that it seems foreign rather than familiar. All you have to go on is your wit and your passion, your charm and your references. All you have is your future ahead of you.

As for me, my future is underway. Tomorrow is the exact six month mark since I started here at the J&C. It’s pretty insane how quickly it passed.

Remember back in middle school and high school when there was still so much you had never done or tried. Remember how your friends who had done those things suddenly became your expert guide as you met each milestone. Dating, driving, etc.

I’m having this weird deja vu the past few weeks. Only this time, it seems, I’m ahead of the curve and everyone wants my advice.

This is the time when all the summer interns are nervously starting to count the weeks remaining not the weeks they’ve been here. As few as two weeks left or as long as a month or two. The ones who are on post-grad internships (as several of my friends are) and even the ones who are looking forward to the next internship (as is the case for others I know) are suddenly wondering where they will find themselves after their summer internship ends.

I’m not an expert on finding a job at all. At all. In fact, I spent much of my final semester of college just freaking out because I just knew I’d never land one in journalism.

Miraculously, I got some nibbles, scored a few interviews and actually did get a job. Because I already went through this ritual and successfully completed it, that suddenly makes me an expert. Or at least, everyone seems to think I know more than they do.

I kind of wish I’d had that “what’s it like” network when I was looking. Though, fortunately, I had the network of professors whose offices I frequented in search of another set of eyes to proof my resume or another opinion on which cover letter to use and where to apply.

I’ve had conversations with four different people over the past week about the best way to go about applying for jobs, finding job postings, copying & sending clips, picking clips, writing cover letters and more. I always start with the disclaimer that I really lucked out in the job search.

In the interest of helping others who want to know what it’s like to find a job, here’s a quick round-up of how my search went. Remember, I was a horrible job hunter, so luck surely played some part in it.

• I didn’t have time to search for jobs or contact editors or put together beautiful clip packages. I was busy taking a course overload necessary to graduate early, editing my daily student newspaper and trying to maintain a semblance of a social life.
• The packets that did get sent out (aside from some from the job fair, probably only a half-dozen were mailed out) were put together well after midnight on Sundays after I’d just finished putting the Stater to bed. None of the papers I actually interviewed with received those packets via mail. I think I only actually talked to one of the editors who got the packet on the phone. I got a “we received your application” back from another. The majority of my inquiries went unanswered, though I didn’t follow up on most because by the time I would have I already had some interviews lined up and had decided I would see what happened and if I didn’t have a job by New Years I’d start again with rigor.
• The others were from an interview at a job fair, an e-mail inquiry or them getting my name and resume/clips online. I also interviewed with a few recruiters who came to Kent, though I didn’t slate myself for all of them though my professors said I should. One of those interviews was with a corporate recruiter whom I’d already been in contact.
• At least two editors contacted my references before contacting me. (I know because the editors told me or the professors would find me in the Stater office and ask if I heard from X paper.) In a few instances, the editors knew one or more of my references through having worked with them in the past.
• I kept my options open. I wanted a reporting or online reporting position, but looked at online producing and copy editing jobs in appealing locations as well. My location criteria was I would move anywhere that paid me enough to live. My varied experience was, I think, what made me stand out. The other thing, I’ve been told by the editors who interviewed and hired me, was my passion and excitement for this business and its future.
• It all happened pretty quickly. One minute I’m taking my news design exam, the next I’m Googling the area code of a phone call to find out where the heck it was coming from to place what paper it could be. One week I’m wondering if the bowling alley would let me come back after graduation, the next I’m touring the Midwest in a suit.
• I don’t think I was quite prepared enough for the intensity of the job interviews themselves. I think that’s the one thing nobody warned me about. You interview with just about every editor at the paper, and it’s like rapid fire one right after another, from office to office, conference room to conference room. By the third or fourth person, I was always left wondering, wtf just happened? And trying to keep my excitement up as I answered what I would have sworn was word-for-word the same exact question I had just answered for the last three. Luckily, I’m a naturally excited person especially when I’m passionate about something. They all also included lunch or breakfast or both with editors and/or reporters. You get about two bites in, so don’t forget to eat breakfast before you come.
• Each interview included test stories and written tests on grammar/style/general knowledge. Two of the test stories included mandates to write something for online. One was a bogus crash where I was given the notes/release and had to craft a story. The other was a story about holiday travel that required me to go out and find real people, contact the airport, contact AAA, etc. That story would have been easy, and in fact I had the online update within 15 minutes of getting the assignment, but ran into time trouble after the reporters who took me to lunch took me to a place that took forever to seat and serve us. I had about 15 minutes after that to find the “real people” and get it written, this involved me practically running down main street. I think the editor was actually happy to see the unexpected pressure. When I told her what happened and how I handled it, she laughed and said it would have made a good reality show. As for the general knowledge, I didn’t know who the Indiana senators were and I guessed on the name of the Indianapolis NBA team (correctly, I looked it up immediately after I left). So you never know what random questions could pop up.
• Since starting my job, I’ve received at least half a dozen e-mails or calls from editors looking for the right candidate for their positions. At least one contacted me again after my 90-day probation to check in.

And there, my friends, in one quick list is everything I know about job hunting based on my own fledgling experience. I hope it’s helpful. If it’s not and somehow you don’t already know, Joe Grimm’s ask the recruiter column is a godsend of awesome advice, as is the journalists community on LiveJournal.

As I have told my friends, there is no right way. The right way is the one that works, for you, for the editor, for the paper that actually has a suitable opening at the right time. Try every way and hope one of them sticks. That was pretty much my method.

Good luck!

I’ve been talking to one of our editors about blogs lately. It started because he asked if I read any blogs, which led to, “Well, how do you find them?”

I explained RSS feeds and how to find one or two blogs you like, and check out who they’re linking to or what they’re posting. Chances are, if you find a blog you like they’re looking at other blogs or sites you might like. Pretty soon you’ll be swimming in too many feeds to keep up on. (I am terribly behind in my feed-reading after not having the net and then going home for a family reunion.)

Yesterday, we started talking about the why of keeping a blog. For me, a big part is the people I “meet” or I guess the better term is interact with. I’m exposed to awesome projects and ideas on a daily basis by some of the industry thought leaders and several others who are, like me, toiling away doing the daily work and sharing their knowledge and experiences. I love watching how it all comes together. I love watching how one idea gets picked up, discussed and debated. How it bounces across my corner of the blogosphere until I myself feel compelled to weigh in and come to terms with my own, now much more informed, opinion.

He mentioned that a few years ago they had several interns who were keeping blogs and being very candid about their work experience, saying things like “I can’t believe So & So did that to my story,” and so forth. Apparently, everyone in the newsroom was reading the blogs and the interns had no idea until about a month in. Oops.

That’s why I was upfront and honest from day one. I told my editors about the blog before they hired me and after I was hired, I reiterated it. I have never sought to hide it, nor felt a reason or need to do so. But then, I’m not blogging about how horrible the people on my beat or in my newsroom are. (For the record, they aren’t horrible. I consider myself amazingly fortunate to have landed here.)

Since I’ve started this blog, I’ve given a lot of thought to what blogs role is, and I decided that I can best serve others by just relaying my experience and opinions for what they are. As with all new endeavors, I’ve shifted since I started. I try to focus on experiences that I think will help others understand what it’s like to be a brand new reporter starting out in this shifting world. It’s a snapshot of what it’s like to learn by the seat of your pants in an industry that’s making it up as they go along. I hope that I’m able to pass along some of the excitement I have at the opportunity to do that to others who stumble on this site.

I’ve had people ask me what my bosses think about this site. Truth is, I really don’t think they care. I think they like having a tech-savvy reporter who actually cares enough about her craft to keep a blog about it. But do I worry about my co-workers stumbling on my blog. Uh, no. One of them inevitably brings it up almost daily, though I don’t think any of them reads it regularly. Do I worry about my bosses reading too much into my posts? Again, I don’t think they read it regularly, and even if they did, they’re pretty down-to-earth, and I would feel more than comfortable sitting down with any of them to explain where I was coming from in any post they took out of context. Do I worry about my sources finding it? Not really because they’d almost surely be bored beyond belief with all the journalism minutiae.

Yes, there are times where I’d like to rant that I’d rather stick a needle in my eye than write one more charticle. But even when I do get the urge to rant about something unfair in the README memo or about a something that really upset me, I don’t. I count to 10 and ask if I’d really want my boss or source to stumble on that. Would I want my future boss to read that? I guess I self-censor myself. Nobody else says what I can or can’t say. And I think that’s the best kind of relationship between this blog and work.

So, I post this as a warning. And as an admonishment on my part. For, I made a seriously huge mistake this week, and I’m glad my boss took it in stride.

I have been working on this package about the state of superitendency in our region. Several of our superintendents are retiring this summer or have announced their intent to retire within the next year. More than two-thirds of our superintendents have 30+ years of experience in education (translation: it won’t be much longer).

As a part of my package, I wanted to see how long each of our local superintendents had been in his or her position. This involves calling out to 26 different school corporations. My everyday coverage usually encompasses three of them, with a bit more emphasis on one other. But for the most part, I don’t stray too far out of this county except to monitor the boards and make sure nothing crazy or important happens.

So, imagine my shock when I call one of the distant corporations Tuesday afternoon and am told by the secretary: “He’s no longer the superintendent. So & So replaced him — in April.”

I almost cried. It was all I could do to stifle my shock and stay composed enough to ask for the spelling of the new guy’s name and what happened (at least it was retirement, not something else crazy).

The problem, as if dropping the ball and completely missing a new superintendent in one of my districts wasn’t big enough, was my boss wasn’t having the best of days. And I was NOT going to break the news that I’d missed that story to him while the odds were stacked against me. I asked another reporter for her advice, and she concurred. Come in early the next day and catch him then.

The next morning, I rolled in about half an hour early. Sat down, turned on my computer, checked my e-mail and glared at the notebook with the superintendent story notes. Ugh. I knew I had to tell him, even though every ounce of me wanted not to know how disappointed he’d be.

I wanted to check and make sure I wasn’t catching him at a bad time, so I went to send the reporter a note via iChat, which is on each of our computers. It read: “Is (he) in a good mood today? Or is now a bad time to tell him about the new superintendent in (that district)?”

Two seconds after I hit send I look up and realize, to my absolute horror, that it said across the top: “Chat with (My Editor).”

I could have cried, and those tears would have been much worse than the ones about a missed story.

I jumped up immediately and dashed across the office to his desk, where he was sitting and as I approached reading my iChat to him.

Ugh. Talk about odds stacked against me. So I had to apologize profusely and truthfully not only for dropping the ball on the story but also for the misdirected im.

Luckily, I guess, though the discourse did involve at least one profanity and a pen being thrown at the desk a little harder than necessary, it softened the blow on the superintendent being named months ago without my notice. And, to be honest, my editor did get over it relatively quickly. Though, because another reporter made a similar mistake a few weeks ago in an im intended for me, I think he probably thinks we talk about him all the time. We really don’t. (I swear!) I was just trying to test the waters to make sure it wasn’t bad timing.

The point of relaying this is to warn you all. I am about as tech-savvy as they come, and it was a stupid mistake. But, as those of you on my facebook or twitter friends list know, “Meranda is never talking about her boss on iChat again — especially if it might accidentally be sent to him, oops.”

You’ve been warned. Though my co-workers all had a great laugh about it, I’ll bet that goes on my review. Eep.

Though I’m no longer looking for a job and have no plans to be any time soon (journalism gods willing), I still find myself reading the Meet the Recruiter column at Poynter nearly daily.

I met and interviewed with Joe Grimm last fall, and I highly respect him and his opinion. Long before that, it was his Jobs Page Web site I read every single page of during my internship search. I figure reading his advice now can only help when I am ready to move up or on.

An interesting question popped up this week. Basically, the person graduated from a major j-school, had some international internships, foreign languages and solid clips. He/she wants to work for a major newspaper or magazine and isn’t have any luck finding the job she/he deserves. As the heading reads: “Why won’t big publications hire me?”

As I find is often the case, what’s more interesting than Joe’s opinion or the question itself was the response it elicited from the crowd of other journalists who all assembled to throw in their 2 cents.

A few of my favorites (because they jibe with my own thoughts):

From Jeffrey Good: If the writer can’t see the fascinating possibilities of covering the way people live in smaller communities, he won’t find the fascinating details that make for great journalism in the big leagues. You can’t play great jazz piano before learning your scales, brother.

From Ron Erdrich: Besides, a small paper is a great place to work off your rough edges and make your mistakes. No, your internships don’t count toward that because the perception is that someone was holding your hand during that time. Internships come with training wheels, jobs toss you in the deep end while idly wondering if you swim.

I’d say find a small paper well-recommended where you can shine. Believe me, people will see you better there than at the Big City Daily Blab where you’re story is buried on page 23 next to the sofa warehouse ads.

The above comment reminds me of a friend I met through the jschool_students group at LiveJournal. She and I have never personally met, but we’ve kept up pretty regular contact online the past few years. She landed a job at a ~150,000 circulation metro in a large city right out of school.

A few weeks back we had a conversation that put my job in perspective for me. I had complained that I didn’t have time to finish my Sunday package about teacher salaries and had to come in on my day off. She said it seemed like I was always working on some package or story for A1, and wondered if it was expected or how often it happened. I hadn’t really thought about it before. In her time (a year and a half) at her paper, she’s had four stories hit front. I flipped back through my work and calculated I’d had a front page article once every three days on average, about 2/3 of them in centerpiece position. That doesn’t factor in local front, or say anything about the fact that we only run two or three stories on our fronts each day because of our size.

The coversation made me realize something about my job that I think the person asking for Joe’s advice doesn’t get: I am an integral part of the news reporting team here. I’m expected to produce enterprise worthy of going out front. I never wonder if the work I do matters. I know it does.

From Kent Kirschner: My advice to this person would be to reconsider an investment of 50,000 in a masters journalism program and ask his or herself: do I want to write stories about people and events or do I want to tell my friends about my important job. Tell great stories, tell great stories, tell great stories………the rest will follow.

I love that: Do I want to write stories about people and events, or do I want to tell my friends about my important job? The answer is obvious for me.

When I graduated, I knew I could and would do amazing journalism no matter where I landed. But I’ve always felt there is a lot you can learn only by doing, so in truth, I wasn’t ready for the big leagues. Sure I want to work at the top someday. But I want to be sure I have a solid foundation. As Howard Owens posted in reply to an earlier blog post: “There is no substitute for experience. That’s a statement you can’t even fully grasp without experience.”

It doesn’t matter where I end up in 10 years, I knew that the one thing I would need to build my career upon was solid reporting experience. I knew my first job would serve this primary role. So, I sought jobs that would give me that. Even if I go into editing or never work as a beat reporter again after this job, the experience I get is important. give it 100 percent with the expectation of getting as much as possible out of it. The tipping point to come here was that, as I got the impression on my interview and as the editor told me when he made the offer, I would be given the opportunity to enterprise stories and also delve into online. Those were the two things I was looking for, and so far, I’ve not been disappointed.

I get the impression the question-asker would rather die than be in my shoes (mid-size daily, education beat, Indiana?!). A lot of people probably would. But know what? I may not have graduated from one of the top three journalism schools in the country or have amazing international experience under my belt, but I had solid, realistic expectations. And six months out, I have a job I love.

I saw an interesting piece on Romenesko: “Colleges keep turning out optimistic print journalists despite the newspaper industry crunch”

Most interesting point: On the students still enrolling in j-school in huge quantity…

“These students are young, and I’m not sure they’re particularly concerned or cognizant of the industry’s problems,” Kirkton said. “I think they just expect a lot of change in their lives and that if they go out of here with a good skill set, particularly the ability to communicate well, that they’re going to find a place in life.”

and later on:

“They see this revolutionary change that we’re in now as simply a matter of course. I find them looking forward to helping write the new business model of the newspaper industry,” said Fink, the author of nine journalism textbooks and a former executive vice president of Park Communications, an East Coast newspaper and broadcast company. “I find them intrigued with the online dimensions of the industry.

(My aside to that comment is it hits spot on on how I feel. I accept and embrace change. That’s why I always hated the “where do you see yourself in five years” question. I don’t even know what crazy new way of telling or producing the news is going to exist in five years. But I see myself there, wherever there is.)

Most depressing part: A comment made to a recent grad by human resources for one of the newspaper chains…

“She was like, ‘You know, I don’t want to discourage you, but if you can use your journalism degree to get into a different career path, I would recommend doing that,’” Rancer recalled. “It’s a really, really tight market for recent college grads in journalism.”

(My aside to that comment is that person should get out of this business pronto. There are enough nay-sayers and doomsday predictions from the peanut gallery. We don’t need people hiring and inspiring the next generation of journalists trying to deflect them from pursuing their goals.

To recent grads, my friends from KSU and elsewhere, there are jobs. Yes it will suck to do a job search. No you won’t start out at the Chicago Tribune. Yes you will be paid poorly. No you won’t get the holidays and weekends off. Maybe you’ll luck out, and it won’t be a long drawn out process, somehow I did. Maybe you’ll spend the next six months wondering why you didn’t major in engineering or considering grad school. Stick it out. You were drawn to this profession because you had a passion for it. If you don’t have that passion, spare yourself, your eventual employer and all those other kids who do have a passion by removing yourself from queue of people desperate for a job.)

Most encouraging part: On getting the future of “newspapers”…

“Newspapers might not be on paper some day, but these students, I think, believe that there will be some kind of newspaper industry,” Fox said. “I think what we have to do is really teach the core values of journalism, to be able to understand what is news, how to write it, how to get it ethically and accurately delivered. Past that, I think that we’re in a time where we need to teach that and then get out of the way. We need to let them lead and let us mentor.”

I was quoted in a similar article in the Beacon Journal last summer: “Journalism still a popular major at college”

My quote then still holds true today: “I didn’t pick it because it was well paid,” said Meranda Watling, a senior at Kent State who is interning at The Courier in Findlay. “I picked it because I can see myself getting up every day of my life and being excited about going to work.”