He'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again   

A frustrated, job-hunting young journalist argues large dailies are dull because they don't hire young people.

Here are my hands. Slap on the cuffs. I'm tired of running. I'm ready to confess. I'll tell you anything you want to know.

It's like this: I was born only 24 years ago. I'll be graduating from college this month. I've got only one year of experience at a metro daily. I'm through pretending to be something I'm not.

Though I have tap, tap, tapped away on keyboards until my fingers bled, I never learned the secret of the biz: What is so dad-burned important about experience?

I slipped a batch of résumés under the front doors of most of the major newspapers across the country. Most responded with form letters. There is a little comfort in knowing that I wasn't treated any worse than any other applicant.

I proudly referred to my year-plus experience at the Washington Times as an editorial assistant. The Times saw fit to publish more than 40 clips of mine – features, book reviews and film reviews, mostly – despite my being one of the protozoa in the journalism food chain.

Some of the responses were priceless. These gurus took the time to speak from the mountaintop, offering sage advice to me, the poor wayward soul below. Ah, but it's not that easy! These letters are couched in wonderfully vague terms, providing riddles for me to solve to pass the rites of journalism manhood. How encouraging that these wise elders didn't take offense at the audacity I showed in applying to their newspapers.

David Lipman of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch writes, "We rarely hire anyone without significant daily newspaper experience or its equivalent." John F. Oppedahl of the Arizona Republic writes that he doesn't "have an opening for someone with your level of experience." Marta Bender of the Milwaukee Sentinel writes that the paper has "a long list of applicants who have considerable daily newspaper experience after graduation."

Bender offers this nugget of wisdom: "Your best chance to get that experience will be on a smaller daily." Louise Seals of the Richmond Times-Dispatch similarly expounds, "You may find the job prospects brighter by applying in a smaller market. Then, after you've had the opportunity to build your portfolio of clippings, we would be happy to consider an application from you."

Perhaps the best of the responses in this vein comes from Wayne M. Stewart of the Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph, who writes, "You might try some of the smaller daily newspapers to gain further experience before you approach us again " (emphasis added). I've never been threatened with good advice before! The Gazette-Telegraph has a circulation of a little more than 100,000. The Washington Times, where I've worked for more than a year, says it has a circulation of slightly less than 100,000.

The two prizes among the responses, the most magnificently high-handed, pompous and self-congratulatory, came from Tom Linthicum of the Baltimore Sun and Jeanne Fox-Alston of – surprise, surprise – the Washington Post.

It is tempting to quote the letters in their entirety, but space won't allow it. So I offer these enticing tidbits. From Fox-Alston:

"As you probably suspected, we seldom hire reporters straight out of college... And, to be truthful, the Washington Post is not the best place for reporters to start their careers. We simply are not geared to train people." Thank you for informing me that I need training! What a fool I was, to assume that my college education was training.

The next paragraph offers the "smaller newspaper" shtick, and takes it a bit further by suggesting, "The important thing is to keep challenging yourself with progressively larger and better newspapers." I believe what she means is that the divine Post is the pinnacle of the progression, and that every reporter should sluttishly hop from paper to paper until reaching that Holy Grail. I guess I'll have to dispense with my archaic notion of company loyalty.

Linthicum lists the Sun's requirements as "several years of professional experience" and goes on to deliver this advice:

"You might have more success, both now and for your future career development, at a smaller daily newspaper where you can polish a broad range of skills, rather than at a larger metropolitan daily like the Sun, where jobs tend to be more narrowly defined and a higher level of ability is expected." On the surface it seems like so much balderdash, but even a journalistic troll like myself can sense the profundity lurking like a giant squid beneath the words.

"In a few years," he continues, "let us hear from you again. Then we might have just the right opening for you." I'll be almost 30 when I call him back "in a few years."

The inescapable conclusion is that talent doesn't mean anything in the newspaper business. The e-word certainly doesn't increase one's talent. No one knows, of course, what this "experience" is supposed to instill in a young writer, except to dampen his enthusiasm for his craft, and make him old.

I must be judging from the wrong set of values when I see that there are a lot of experienced reporters out there who can't write worth a hoot. Experience and talent are not concomitant, as can be seen (even by a barnacle on the S.S. Journalism such as I!) in the crushingly mediocre quality of most newspaper reporting. It's probably my ignorance getting the best of me when I ask: Why are metro dailies in such financial trouble? Why do they fold on such a regular basis? Could it be that no one reads them? Naahh!

People don't read newspapers. Why? Because they're boring, perhaps? Could it be that the reason newspapers are in trouble is because they are so militantly opposed to hiring young people?

No other industry takes the stance, "We don't want young people, and we don't need young people." Engineering? Law? Medicine? Business? No. Sports? Let's be serious.

Talent carries no weight with newspapers. Not one letter I received said straightforwardly, "Your writing doesn't show the level of ability we require," or "You need to develop a more individual style." I could accept an honest appraisal of my ability, even if the conclusion was that I lacked it. No reference to talent is made in any regard, in any of the letters mentioned. Sure I've got some rough edges; I'm only 24. But these papers do have editors. And from what I read in newspapers every day, the majority of reporters fall squarely in the "adequate" column. I certainly couldn't do any worse.

As a result of this conspiracy against youth, all the talented young writers are being funneled into small papers. Small newspapers, on the whole, are doing much better than large newspapers. One reason is because they are more firmly entrenched in their communities. The other is because the writing is often better.

Not all college graduates are talented, of course. There are good writers and bad ones. But this dichotomy doesn't seem to matter to newspapers. This dichotomy is discarded in favor of the experienced-or-not division.

Somehow the pantheon at newspapers seems to have come to the conclusion that a poor writer with at least five years' experience is better than a talented college graduate. The implicit assumption is that readers care whether the articles they read are written by novices or seasoned pros. This assumption is entirely fallacious. Joe Average doesn't read a story and say, "This story is good, but I'm not familiar with the writer. I wonder if I can believe it." l