“Are You a Writer or Are You a Reporter?”

I will never forget that question. It helped shape my career path. It was 1999 and I was sitting across from Stu Shinske, the managing editor of The Poughkeepsie Journal. I was fresh out of college, interviewing for my very first full-time newspaper gig in a strange city that I had only heard of twice in my lifetime (once because of Tawana Brawley and once because of Friends). I could best be described as a sweaty, nervous wreck.

Upon hearing the question, I paused and thought about it. I mean, really thought about it. No one had ever broken journalism down into those categories for me before. This idea threw me for a loop. After what seemed like forever, I finally said, “I think I’m more of a writer” and I proceeded to wax poetic about what I then described at the art of storytelling. Little did I know the question that had so impressed me was one of the oldest interviewing tricks in the book. You see, it isn’t an either-or question. The real answer is, “I’m both.”

Let me generalize for a second here. Magazine people like myself are very concerned with how a story is conveyed; the language of a piece is extremely important to us, down to the most minute of details. We try to build momentum with a story. Newspaper people? They’re inverted pyramid, scoop-or-be-scooped adrenaline junkies. I’m not insinuating that newspapers aren’t capable of delivering complex stories. Reporters just have different ways of doing that compared to magazine writers. (A series of stories on the same topic that might run over a certain number of days, for example.)

My point is even when I was sent to the scenes of fires, drive-by shootings, and car crashes while interning at The Detroit News, I knew I wasn’t a true newspaper person. The urgency that reporters feel just didn’t drive me. However, in order to be a good magazine writer, I believe that you must at least have basic reporting skills to distill your work and make sure you’re getting at all of the major points of a story. I know that developed that ability during my time in newspapers. If you don’t have those skills, you’re just a frustrated fiction writer.

As the editorial internship coordinator for Cincinnati Magazine, I spring the writer-reporter question on intern candidates all the time. I can count on one hand the number of students who’ve given me the right answer. Lots of students, particularly those interested in magazines, often shun the newspaper experience, as if it’s a waste of time in the grand scheme of things. Students who come to me seeking experience should realize that our ever-fracturing profession is still connected in many ways. This work isn’t an either-or proposition. When they do understand this and finally give me the answer I’m looking for, I can only hope that they really mean it.

Cheers,

Aiesha D. Little
NABJ Adviser
University of Cincinnati Association of Black Journalists

Aiesha is an associate editor at Cincinnati Magazine, www.cincinnatimagazine.com.