gangstaswan

So a really good friend of mine got a job at the Daily Pilot in Huntington Beach (it's an LA Times affiliate). She applied for the job in November.

I did too.

Why'd she get a call back and I didn't?

Because she has more internships (Press-Telegram, LA Parent magazine vs. my none)?

Because she's had a better variety (PT, LAPM, college newspaper, college magazine and a paper in Antelope Valley vs. Inyo Register, PT and college newspaper)?

Times like these make me feel really insecure about having majored in journalism.

I excelled in all my classes (OK, I got a C, but that's because combing through three decades of LA Times articles doesn't count as academic research to a stupid professor who can't even communicate her assignments clearly).

I've been doing journalism since I was 16.

I ran the college newspaper which is a daily for a campus second only in size to UCLA (whose paper, I might add, receives $2 million annually for its budget vs. the barely $150,000 we received, annually, based on ads alone).

I helped two Turkish men set up their own newspaper so they could disseminate news to their own community.

I'm now a copy editor/ page designer at the Signal Tribune. I was sorta offered a job at the PT twice (the first time I didn't act fast enough because I had family stuff to take care of; second time they passed me over then froze the position).

So why didn't the Pilot call me?

My friend is an amazing editor. She certainly knows her shit. That's why I hired her for the college newspaper.

So why is it all the people who worked under me are now getting better jobs than me? Three went to the Press-Telegram. Now this girl is at the Pilot. Another got an internship at the OC Register, which will most likely turn into a position somewhere within that organization. Another is working for a paper in Boston (a great sounding one) and already worked for two papers in D.C.

Am I just too good at training others? I want to teach but damnit I need real world experience first.

I don't know what else to do with my life, other than be a journalist. We always joke there is ink in our veins. If you cut me, I bleed black ink. That's how integral journalism is to my life.

So what do I do?