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Craft of Writing

Shanna Lewis

How I Landed a Job as a Reporter and Photographer for a Small-town Newspaper

Intimidated by the small gray house with the white picket fence, I leaned hard into the red-painted front door. Locked every other time I’d tried, now it flew open, propelling me over the threshold and into the local newspaper office.

The only thing that had gotten me past the white gate to begin with was my sincere belief that there was no way I’d get a job working there. So, I thought, I could casually stop in, ask for work, and be turned down. Then I could write the “job contact” on my unemployment form for the week. I’d stopped by several times before, never realizing that since the newspaper came out on Thursdays, the office was often unstaffed on Fridays and weekends, hence the locked door.

A friendly man with a balding pate and a big mustache sat behind the front desk and asked if he could help me. Emboldened by the certainty that I wouldn’t be hired, I asked if they had any jobs openings. Turns out I was talking to the editor, publisher and owner of the paper.

“What do you do?” he asked.

Now, I was in trouble. This was much further then I had expected to get when I pushed on that red door. Fear and excitement churned in my stomach like a few dozen goldfish doing laps as I blurted out, “I write.”

He smiled. I wondered, how many people who thought of themselves as writers had stumbled into that office just like me? Backing toward the door, I was ready to say thanks and make my escape.

To my surprise, instead of telling me not to let the door hit me in the butt on my way out, he asked me how I was with computers and if I knew anything about pagination.

After fourteen years of figuring out everything I needed to know about computers by reading help menus, calling tech support and bugging friends, I know just enough about computers to impress folks who don’t know anything and to make savvy folks laugh at me. Pagination, hmmm, well, I knew how to put page numbers on Word documents, wasn’t that pagination? I told him what I knew and he asked me to drop off a resume.

Luckily, since becoming unemployed, I’d spent some time updating my resume, including highlighting my writing and writing related skills, despite my meager experience in the field.

Dressed in nicer clothes, instead of the jeans and t-shirt of my earlier visit, I returned with my resume. An eighty-pound Newfoundland puppy greeted me with great glee at the door. The editor asked me to have a seat and took a quick look at my resume. As I waited, a moist tickle warmed my toes; I glanced down to see the humongous black puppy, Balthazar, licking my sandaled feet. Smile pasted on my face, I did my best to ignore the giant amorous canine.

When the editor asked me about pagination again, I started to worry. Was there something special about the word pagination in the newspaper world that I didn’t know? Meantime Balthazar made his way up to my ankles. Surreptitiously shifting my legs to the other side of the chair and out of licking range, I said I had worked on a few catalogs and newsletters, plus my novel, and I was good at figuring out how to do things I’d never done before.

The editor said to check back with him. So I did. Week after week I would drop in and say hello. “Nothing yet,” was always the answer, but he was always friendly and never discouraged me from coming by.

After a couple of months, I strolled into the little gray house only to come face to face with the managing editor. She did not look thrilled to see me and asked me what I wanted. I told her.

She looked down her nose and said, “We don’t need any writers.”

Crushed, I prepared to walk out the red door and never look back. Just at that point Balthazar bounded into the room followed by the editor, who grinned when he saw me and asked, “Don’t we need someone to cover the school board meetings?”

The unfriendly managing editor had an immediate reversal of attitude and agreed. In a flash, I had a reporter’s notebook in my hands and an assignment to cover the school board meeting the following night. I was so elated, I never even asked how much they were paying me.

So the next night I was seated on a hard metal folding chair at the local school board meeting, frantically scratching notes and trying to look professional despite jangled nerves. Thus my newspaper career was born.

Tips for getting your first writing assignment with a newspaper or magazine:

First start with the four “Be’s”

1. Be brave and have confidence in yourself. If you don’t take that first step towards your goal it’s a guarantee that you will never reach it, so tell yourself you can do it and go for it! Do whatever you need to, to convince yourself to take that first step. In my case I believed that I had nothing to lose by trying.

2. Be prepared. Have your resume ready, have ideas for stories, hone up your writing skills and learn or sharpen any related skills such as photography, design and layout, note-taking, communications, advertising, computer knowledge, etc., that might make you a more attractive candidate for a job. (See tips below.) Also read the publication you are approaching so that you are familiar with its content and style. Make notes of what areas they already have covered or what hasn’t been covered; if they don’t have someone covering some aspect of the community then maybe you can. On the other hand be careful to note what kinds of coverage the editor leans toward. Don’t slam the local theater company if it’s clear that the newspaper always supports it.

3. Be professional and friendly. Make sure you are on time for appointments, return phone calls promptly and if someone says “no” don’t get angry but don’t give up either. (See next tip.)

4. Be persistent and don’t give up too easily. If the editor isn’t interested right away, he or she still might have something come up later on and if you’ve stayed in touch and been pleasant, there’s a good chance he or she will remember and call you or maybe you will be standing in front of him or her right when they need someone for an assignment.

Ideas and Actions for being as prepared as possible:

1. When preparing your resume, include anything you have ever done that has any relationship to writing, communications, advertising, or publishing. A few examples that I used in my resume included: minor publication credits, self-editing, writing copy and doing simple desktop publishing for my own business newsletter, helping local organizations prepare letters and other written materials, critiquing at WVU, and attending writing classes, workshops, and conferences. I also listed my knowledge of particular pieces of software and my assorted administrative and office skills. If you are good with computers, desktop publishing, bookkeeping, or web design make sure you put it on your resume. You never know what kinds of needs a small publication may have. You might get your foot in the door because they need help with ad sales or computer networking or staffing the front desk. Once you have the connection you’ll have a better chance of landing some assignments. If you don’t know how to write a resume, get a how-to book from the library and use one of the formats in it to get started.

2. Use your experience to your advantage. What most likely got me my first assignment was really the fact that the editor was looking for someone who could help digitize their antiquated layout process. Plus the fact that I had an almost obsolete degree in film photography clinched the deal. Don’t worry about degrees in journalism or creative writing, just emphasize what you know and what you can do. Many small publications are looking for columnists with experience in something of interest to their community, for example, our newspaper runs columns by the county health nurse, the cooperative extension agent and a local high school senior. We also have an art columnist who attends and writes about every cultural event in town from the high school drama club plays to a visiting string quartet to the local dance studio’s recitals. I know plenty of reporters who don’t have journalism degrees.

3. Consider starting small. Local and regional publications are often in need of content, so familiarize yourself with the kinds of stories they run and then write a couple of sample pieces or query the editor. Many years ago I simply wrote to an editor of a local magazine asking for their submission guidelines and she called me to ask what I had in mind. I told her a few of my ideas. She chose one and the next thing I knew I had my first publication credit. One thing to keep in mind is that these publications usually want localized stories that will appeal to their specific market. So be wary of asking a small-town editor if she’d be interested in a piece on the Tsunami relief effort, unless there’s a local community member who’s part of the effort and could be the focal point of the story.

4. Don’t tell them if you haven’t been published unless they flat out ask you. Just emphasize your skills and experience. I wasn’t asked for any clips or evidence that I could write when I was given my first assignment.

5. Don’t expect to get paid much to start with. The first story I ever sold was about 2000 words, took me weeks to research and write and I was paid $25. The real compensation was the confidence it gave me that I could see my words in print and it gave me my first publication clip.

6. Consider learning to use a digital camera. Small newspapers and magazines often don’t have staff photographers, although ours does, so if you can supply good quality photos along with your story that may just help sell your work.

7. Don’t turn any opportunities down; you never know what else it might lead to. Taking on the coverage of the school board led to a full-time newspaper job for me. My editor has helped me get photos published in three other much larger daily newspapers, when they contacted him to obtain images for stories they had planned about our area. This is a common practice in the industry. Also the more experience you have the more your confidence and credibility will grow.

So take that first step and the next thing you know you’ll be seeing your writing in black and white in the local newspaper.


About the Author
Shanna Lewis is a staff writer and photographer for the Wet Mountain Tribune in Westcliffe, Colorado and has had freelance work published in The Denver Post, The National Post (Canada), The Daily Record, and Catalyst, as well as radio stories featured on Western Skies, a radio newsmagazine broadcast from KRCC in Colorado Springs. Her short fiction has won several awards and has appeared in on-line publications including KidVisions, Whim’s Place, I Write for You, and The Peacock Chronicle. She and her husband live in a solar-powered straw bale home, which they built themselves. Like most writers she has a novel to finish and another to begin.