Talk at SUNY Cobleskill

In September, I was invited to give a talk to communication students at SUNY Cobleskill on Nov. 8 about the reasons I got into the journalism/editing business. I am not one for public speaking, but I thought it would be a good experience, and I was flattered that they asked me. And I thought that the students could maybe benefit a little hearing from someone who's been in the business for a while who's kind of close to their age(s). Though I didn't use notes during my talk, I did write down a bunch of stuff earlier in the day (thank-you to my awesome boyfriend for helping me with an outline)--a kind of rough draft--to remind myself of things I wanted to touch on or make points about. I was asked to talk about three things: My academic/professional background; what a typical day at work is like for me; and what I like and dislike about my job. For anyone who's interested, here's what I wrote, and mostly what I talked about.

Hi, my name is Kate. I am a Senior Associate Editor at Metroland, an alternative newsweekly paper serving the Capital Region of New York and Western Massachusetts with a circulation of 40,000.

I’m very lucky in that I’ve practically always known what I’ve wanted to do for a living. I was in junior high school when I decided that I wanted to go into journalism. Many things contributed to my decision. I knew that my strengths, academically, were in reading, writing and English. I knew that I wanted to have a job where I felt that I was contributing to the community, but at the same time, where I would feel personally fulfilled in going to work and in believing that the work I did mattered.

So, I was able to focus my studies and my extra-curricular activities in the direction of my goal, which was to go to college for--and have a career in--journalism. In high school, I was very involved with the school newspaper, writing stories, and learning the basic process of editing a piece for the purposes of publishing. I briefly became a student reporter for the Southern Tier’s daily newspaper, the Press and Sun Bulletin. For my first two years of college, I went to Lock Haven University in central Pennsylvania. There, my major was Mass Communication with a concentration in Journalism. I excelled in my Journalism classes and could pretty much care less about my general-studies classes. I became the copy editor for the college newspaper and worked late nights making sure the paper was as grammatically correct and typo-free as I could make it.

After two years at Lock Haven, I transferred to UAlbany. I didn’t do much research about the school, so I didn’t know that it wasn’t possible to take journalism as a major. I got my degree in Rhetoric Communication with a minor in Women’s Studies. After college, I wasn’t in a hurry to find a “real” job, so I worked as a waitress for a year, which I did throughout college as well. At the café where I worked, we got Metroland delivered every Thursday, and I started reading it, and quickly fell in love with it. I liked that it was an independent newspaper and that its coverage of local politics (and its spin on issues) was different than the mainstream media. I met my current boss—the owner of Metroland—while I was working at the café. I told him that I wanted to work for Metroland, and I applied for a job. There were no positions available at the time, but I was determined to get a job at the paper, so I was content to continue working at the café while I pursued a job there. This lasted for about a year.

Finally, in March of 2002, I started temping at the paper when they needed extra help. That eventually turned into a fulltime position when I was hired as an editorial assistant. Over the course of the four and a half years I’ve been at Metroland, I’ve been promoted four times and, needless to say, I’ve taken on more responsibility.

A Typical Day
Metroland is a small, independent company, and therefore, we have a very small staff and we work in a very relaxed atmosphere. There are four departments at the paper: Production, Editorial, Administrative, and Sales. Each department kind of follows their own set of unspoken rules. There are six of us in the editorial department, not including my boss. We have very flexible schedules—we can come in late, leave early, work late, or work on weekends—whatever works best for us. A typical day for me would be getting at the office between 9:30 and 10 in the morning and leaving between 5 and 6 in the evening. My job varies day-to-day. Since we work on a weekly schedule, I usually take care of different things on each day of the week. Our production day is Wednesday, so Thursday is pretty much the beginning of our week. Thursdays and Fridays are spent planning the next week’s issue—we have meetings, make calls, make sure larger stories are where they need to be, update schedules, and pick out what events we want to preview or review for the next week. Each editor makes sure that his or her sections are taken care of. For example, my main section is music. I contact my music writers, or they contact me, about what shows or stories they want to cover. If someone’s profiling a musician, I make sure there’s a photographer assigned to the story. Think of being an editor as kind of like being a producer. You are the person behind the scenes, making sure everything goes smoothly and the people who need to get in touch with each other do, or if you have a writer going to review a show, make sure that he has tickets waiting for him at the door. And make sure there’s a photographer there to shoot the band, etc.

Mondays through Wednesdays are generally spent writing, editing, and basically producing the paper. I’d love to say that we make our deadlines every week, but we rarely do. I have yet to come across an editorial staff that’s really good about making deadlines. Wednesdays are usually pretty stressful, trying to make our 5 o’clock deadline, but I got to leave early today, so I was happy to leave the other editors with the work.

What I Love/Hate About the Job
I am extremely lucky, because I love my job. I really do. I like maintaining good relationships with my writers, I like that I work in a relaxed office with very smart people, I like that I believe in the product that we put out, and I like the freedom I have in terms of schedule and creativity. There are some fabulous perks—sometimes I get to travel for work. I get to meet really cool people. I get to work with people I admire and respect. What I don’t like? Deadlines. Having to conform to other people’s schedules. Dealing with difficult people. And sometimes, I don’t like the lack of structure.