Micah Parson Son

A few years ago, a friend and I went to the University of Missouri to major in philosophy, and then at Missouri S&T, a spinoff university for political science. (Many campuses take up a proclivity for one reason or another when two similar majors are offered that often come from the same kind of research.) In our shared class, we both also took the same liberal arts class, and one of my friends came home excited about something: the job opportunities in journalism were really good. While I had some problems with college journalism itself, who I knew at JHU was more open to the idea of me covering local politics, I enjoyed my classes because I knew, I think, that the best journalism in the world lies in local newspapers.

“Oh, you’ll be a big time reporter someday,” he told me. “Why don’t you try that career!”

The thought of that made me happy for years.

But all these years later, I’m grateful that people of all political inclinations, including those on the left, the right, and the center, have a place in journalism.

Not everyone has an enviable ability to get away with bad journalism. Those who don’t have a special advantage of being the author, or managing, or timing, or a social acquaintance, often get in trouble. And many of my friends are stuck at the local desk of newspapers. Instead of getting along and doing it well, it starts to seem boring and monotonous, as a reader once commented to me from the middle of the country, just out of college and spending more time at a desk than actually in the street.

So rather than giving up on Journalism 101, I’ve spent these last few weeks driving around the country, interviewing top writers, editors, and publishers. And at each and every one, I ask them what it might take to break into journalistic work. (And what I continue to do for the job search.)

“I grew up with a fairly hardworking and thoroughgoing mother and father, and as far as my father goes, I know him in that regard,” said Lance Barraglen, former Washingtonian executive editor.