AJR Asks   

What is the best perk associated with your job?

Cynthia Cotts, Press Clips column writer/media reporter, Village Voice
"I get to make a lot of enemies in the business. There's no perk that can compensate for that. I suppose I get a slew of free subscriptions to every manner of publication... I have a mandate to be critical. You don't get many perks from that."

Debby Churchman, senior editor, Ranger Rick magazine
"I get to tell people I'm the insect editor, which is a fun thing, and I get paid to think of riddles. The very, very best thing is that I get to interact with kids. They're the sharpest, funniest, most perceptive critics on the planet."

Annette Caramia, city editor, Las Vegas Review-Journal
"It would have to be having an assigned parking space with my name on it right up next to the door. It's sunny here and hot most of the time, and a couple of skinny trees over my spot allow me to have some shade over my car. That's it."

Tim Belehrad, amusements editor, Baton Rouge's Advocate
"I can't really think of one, to be honest with you."

Bob Mayo, reporter WTAE-TV, Pittsburgh
"It's the pleasure of getting to ask questions and pursue things that you might not otherwise get to pursue... Sometimes it's even frustrating in real life when you end up coming into contact with problems as a consumer. You have the same skills, but you don't have the same entrée."

Steve Persall, film critic, St. Petersburg Times
"All the free movies--they've got to set up these screenings for us so we can get our jobs done--save me $6.50 a pop. Of course, I have to see all the bad ones, too. [And] the travel-- I've been able to cover four Academy Awards."

Mandy Fair, lifestyles editor, Nebraska's Alliance Times-Herald
"I think it would be meeting the people that I write about--getting to know my community a bit better."

Susan Milius, life sciences reporter, Science News magazine
"It's so broadening. I get to send e-mails to perfect strangers saying things like, 'Are you available for conversation about cannibalism?'.. I've gotten to meet a different class of celebrities--the world authority on the potential meanings of chicken clucks. I might have gone through life never having done that... I'm working on a cannibalism thing at the moment. [I got to meet] the woman who documented male sacrifice in Australian spiders through sexual cannibalism."

Compiled by Tricia C. Eller