People vs. prestige

A few weeks ago, I went to my professor for advice on fixing up my resume (which I will be mailing out very, very soon since this whole not-having-a-job-lined-up thing isn't working for me very well). He handed me the resume of one of his former students (who had an internship with the Washington Post) as a guide and then told me that I shouldn't apply for any newspapers over 100,000 circulation.

Whoa. Hold it. First of all, my professor hands me an intimidating resume. Then he places a limit on my abilities. What the heck do I do now?

Needless to say, I was feeling a little lost and incapable when I left his office that day. It was time for me to reevaluate what I wanted to do with the rest of my life and to determine if I had the drive and the skills to follow through with my decisions.

First, the resume. At first glance, the girl's work experience took up the entire first page of her resume with multiple internships. And at the very top - copy editing intern with the Washington Post. I'm thinking, is this what every graduating senior's resume looks like? Because if so, then I'm totally not up to par.

It wasn't until I got home and examined the resume that I realized that she only had experience with a total of two or three newspapers but had held a few positions at each paper. With four newspaper internships already under my belt, that made me feel a whole lot better. But then there was the question of big, prestigious newspapers versus community papers (which is ultimately what this post is about). Which do employers value more?

When I thought about my professor's second comment - don't try for internships at papers with circulation over 100K - I drew the conclusion that the size of the newspaper matters in some aspects, if not all.

That's when I realized that I don't want a big, prestigious newspaper on my resume.

I love community journalism. It's how I started; it's how I'll finish. It's people and it's communication and it's family and it's hands-on. It's what I know. It's what I do.

The experience that I've had at small and metro-sized papers has been so much richer than what I would've gotten at a big newspaper. Yeah, if I'd worked for the NYT, I'd get the prestige of the paper embedded in my title. But I wouldn't be getting anything else, except maybe coffee (ha!).

I wouldn't get to contribute to the lives of citizens through my writing. I wouldn't get to interview a new person every day. I wouldn't get calls from readers who want to talk about what I wrote and share their stories. I wouldn't feel the pressure and responsibility of being residents' only source of local news. I wouldn't experience crunch-time at the end of the day or one-on-one conversations with the editors.

I wouldn't get what I want.

So I'm not taking offense at my professor's advice. I think he knows what I want and where my skills lie. He knows that there's a paper out there somewhere with my name on it and he's going to keep pushing me until I get there.