Three 2006 grads who gave career pointers at the
Native American Journalists Association conference this week are themselves profiles of success.
Their secret? Nothing big. Just do the little things right.
Christina Good Voice is working at
The Associated Press in Oklahoma City, near her
Muscogee (Creek) roots, for a six-month internship. Her formula for getting to the world's largest wire service? "Do something every summer." Paid or unpaid, resume-worthy or not, she has tried to always infuse her summers with journalism workshops, jobs or activities.
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Joe Grimm
Stephanie Conduff |
Stephanie Conduff, an intern at
The Boston Globe, graduated
from the University of Oklahoma, like Good Voice, and laid down one example after another about how much a small thing can mean.
She advised people who listened to the panel discussion they led, "How to be a Successful College Student," not to be snobby about where they work. Be as eager and strong with the small newspapers as the big ones.
"The most important thing is to apply and apply to the places that you think will just throw your application away. It can't hurt to make 15 photocopies instead of 10," she said. Conduff, a
Cherokee, used organizations like the
Chips Quinn Scholars Program and NAJA to get her career on track.
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"HOW TO BE A SUCCESSFUL COLLEGE STUDENT"
Tips from the NAJA panel
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- Apply to every scholarship you can. Once you have an essay, it's easy.
- Meet editors. Become more than a byline or a clip.
- Don't turn your nose up at anyone or any paper.
- If you get homesick, broke or sad, persist.
- Write notes to thank the people who help you.
- Don't be greedy. Once you've got your start, let other get the scholarships.
- Help the ones coming behind you.
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In her
Globe internship, Conduff said, she likes the unpopular Sunday-to-Thursday workweek because Sunday shifts give her opportunities that lead to breaks. Nibs -- small, unbylined stories that are tossed her way -- can lead to bigger stories that carry bylines. A random comment on
Craigslist in which a woman complained about catcalls at the Boston subway led to a 3,000-word Sunday piece.
Little things, big breaks.
The third panelist,
Luella Brien, a graduate of the University of Montana and a
Crow Indian, said, "I'm a more successful intern than college student." She is not interning at a big wire service or newspaper. She is one of the five reporters at the
Ravalli Republic. It's a scramble and scrape.
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Joe Grimm
Christina Good Voice |
Every day for the past two weeks, she said, she had written three stories a day. In-depth stories are only a dream. "They feel your loss more when you're at a small paper," she said. Her wages qualify her for public assistance.
Across the board, the panelists said that pride sometimes stops people from doing what they must do to make it. Swallow the pride, they said, and apply for every little scholarship -- from $250 to $250,000. Accept help and, if need be, public assistance to get through college.
Because all three journalists are Native American women, they share the experience of meeting people who think they have it easy because of their race. The facts don't bear that out. They were definitely not on the four-year college plan. Babies, bills and moving intervened. Conduff graduated in five years, Good Voice in six and Brien in seven.
"The important thing is, we did," said Brien. She and Good Voice each have a set of pre-school twins to juggle with school and career.
Conduff is the first in her family to graduate from college; her father completed the seventh grade. One semester, she carried a 24-hour course load, worked 30 hours a week at the student paper and held a part-time job.
As Conduff spoke in Tulsa's air-conditioned Crowne Plaza, her father was on a job site, putting up rafters in 100-degree heat. She said her success as a journalist has made her father feel his hard work has all been worth it. And that is no small thing.
Joe Grimm is recruiting and development editor for the Detroit Free Press
and also recruits for Gannett. 
