4 posts from August 2007

I'm thinking about the next step in my journalism career. I'm in a general assignment position now with a large side helping of photography.

My first love is sports, though, and I'm not sure when I'm going to get back to it as long as I stay where I am.

Then again, sports positions anywhere are few, and the good ones that open up have over 100 applicants for every opening.

I'm flexible enough that I can write about many things, but they don't always enthuse me. Even the photo assignment I had today didn't enthuse me. It was just to find random people and take pictures of them -- whatever they were doing.

We're doing more of those kinds of photos because the bosses on high think it'll boost circulation by having local names and faces in the paper. I'm not so sure.

With us being short-staffed, I don't have time to do depth pieces. Someone else is assigned to what I want to do, and the other thing is that most positions I'm looking at involve a level of layout -- the one thing I'm not doing here.

So where do I go? Am I being led in a different direction? I've thought about most of the options. Continuing to pursue sports jobs, specializing in another subject matter (agriculture, religion, education, travel, whatever), photography. I like the idea of storytelling, and I'm trying to read some of the current storytelling geniuses to get an idea if I can do that.

I feel like I've gotten a late start on all this (it's not an excuse, but I feel like I need to make faster progress than I am).

Listening to: October Came Late by Mainstay on Pandora Radio.

Thoughts of the song: Never heard it, but love it! I love the mood of it.

My wife is asleep now. She's getting in her school routine. She had a very good first day at her new job today, and I'm so happy for her. Even with a long drive, it's a much better place for her to be.

Now if I can find where I should be -- career-wise.

I'm at a location going through a bit of turbulence.

Everyone, including the people that hired me, said this would likely be a stepping-stone for me. One of them told me that if I was still there in two years -- meaning that I hadn't advanced beyond a small weekly newspaper -- something would be wrong.

Well, I'm not going to say I've done everything I need to do to move up, but I'm confident enough in my abilities to know that I can. I'm trying to decide what level is an appropriate next-step. Also, at the moment, I can't just look for anything, because we're locked into a lease that goes until next June, and my wife will have to work a year at this job. There are a few places I could move to that are within an hour of where I live, but most are owned by the same company I work for now. I'm not saying I wouldn't make such a move, but I'm just trying to make steady improvements and see how that goes.

I may offer up some of the work I've done and get some thoughts from the few of you that read this.

I apologize for being so sporadic in writing. I've had lots to say, but little time to say it. Plus, when I'm writing almost all of the A-section news hole, and taking numerous pictures every week, it's hard to rest from the work.

Plus, outside of my wife, I don't have real friends around here. It's not to say that I won't, but it's hard. Plus, I miss soccer. I don't get to go to nearly as many games or even watch as many. I'm almost two hours from the nearest professional team. I went almost five years without missing a home game for two teams (three if you count the three years the women's professional league existed), and now it's a game here, a game there. I'm missing Beckham at RFK in DC tomorrow to cover a school board meeting, and I'm hoping I'll be finished with the photo assignment in time to drive to a game Saturday.

There's a lot of job stuff I need to sort through, so I hope to write more.