After graduating from USC I sent out resume tapes for about a year.  I got plenty of rejection letters and no job offers.  Discouraged, I decided I needed to take a break and take a second look at my career aspirations.  Realizing I couldn’t imagine myself doing anything other than being a journalist I put myself back in the game.  But by this time, my tape was a year old and I needed a new one.  Not exactly easy when you don’t have access to a camera, editing equipment etc. So I swallowed a bit of ego and enrolled at a community college in San Diego part time so I could intern and MAKE A NEW TAPE.  I interned at Fox 6 News and AirWatch Traffic.  Thanks to my internship at Fox 6 I started working as a freelance news writer for their morning show and then soon got a job as a writer at the local NBC station.  At about the same time I also started working for the Associated Press in the San Diego bureau.  Shortly after that, in March 2006, I got my first on air job at WHIZ in Zanesville, Ohio where worked as a reporter, anchor, and weekend weather anchor.  In March 2007, I jumped to WCHS where I worked as a reporter for the next 5 years.  I'm currently the Digital Content Editor at WOUB Public Media at Ohio University.

If there was a position at ATVN I think I did it.  In studio I did playback, cameras and floor directed.  In the newsroom I wrote, edited, reported and anchored weather.

ATVN teaches you the basic skills you need as a journalist.  It gives you a taste of the day to day pressures of a real world newsroom.

ATVN is such a wonderful educational experience but there is nothing
better than real world experience.  What’s that mean?  INTERNSHIPS!
As many as you can get.  If you have a chance to work in a newsroom in
any capacity, whether paid or unpaid, DO IT!  Go to conventions,
conferences, tape critique sessions.

Never stop learning.  Keep trying to DO better and BE better.  Be
humble.  NEVER GIVE UP!  If you know journalism is your passion then
you should never give up.  My path hasn’t been easy but I persevered.
I did everything I could to make it.  Utilize every opportunity, no
matter if it isn’t exactly “what you want.” You really do have to pay
your dues and if you do so it will make you better, stronger, and
grateful.  Keep the FAITH.  You will make it in this business but you
have to WORK HARD.

Ask for HONEST and UPFRONT advice.  A lot of people might try and
spare your feelings when critiquing your tape.  Ask them to be
brutally honest.  It’s for your benefit.  If your tape sucks, someone
telling you it’s okay won’t do you a lick of good.  My first tape
sucked but I thought it would do the job.  Ask them: Would this tape
get me a job?  Would you hire me?  Remember it takes only one news
director to get that first job. Prepare yourself for graduation
because it will sneak up on you.  TAKE THE RESUME TAPE CLASS.

NETWORK!  I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for people I’ve
met along the way.  The best way to get a job in the business is to
know people IN the business.