Preparing Your Portfolio
Your portfolio is an essential part of your application.
For writers, we mean clips. For photographers, it's usually
a CD. For designers and artists, it's tear sheets or transparencies
or electronic media. For broadcast it’s tapes. For
now, let's call all of those things portfolios.
The nature and size of a portfolio vary greatly, depending
on application requirements and the type of job, but some
characteristics are common to all good portfolios.
As you put together the work samples that will accompany
your cover letter and résumé, touch these bases:
Meet the application requirements. If the newspaper
wants 10 clips from writers, send 10. Not six. Not 20. If
the newspaper doesn't say, reporters and writers should be
safe with six to 10 clips. Artists and designers should go
with about a dozen samples and photographers should go with
about 20. Edit your package down to requirements, but don't
go under. Limit material with shared bylines.
Be neat. Clear, crisp, dated photocopies, well exposed
photos, pages that are nice to look at and easy to handle.
Don't shrink type, chop off the edges of your stories, submit
grayed-out copies or underexposed images. Sloppy packages
that take a second to make aren't going to get a second look.
For writing clips especially, photocopy them on to 8 1/2
by 11 paper, one side only. You may have to scissor and paste
the clips, but your effort will make it easier for others
to read your work, copy it for others or file it. Web printouts
are acceptable.
Show variety. If you're a writer, choose a breaking
news story or two, a feature, a profile, an enterprise story
and maybe a personal essay, if others tell you it's good.
If you're a photographer, submit news, sports and features
images. Show portraits, a studio shot under controlled lighting
and a picture story with a clear beginning, middle and end.
If you're a designer, include feature pages and news pages.
Throw in a brilliant solution to a slow news day. Choose
examples that show how you handle display type, photos and
color.
Make a good first impression. Choose stories that
have great leads. Strong stories with lame leads may not
get read. Strong word pictures that pop will pull the eye
into some of your subtler work, but a collection of subtle
images might not get noticed.
Provide context. If you got the photo of the firefighter
rescuing the baby while everyone else was at the other end
of the building, explain how you came to be in the right
place at the right time. If the remarkable thing about that
story is that you turned it around in three hours, attach
a neat note explaining the conditions under which you worked.
Stuck for what to say in a cover letter? Use it to tease
editors into your portfolio.
By Joe Grimm, Detroit Free Press
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Resources
How to Land a Journalism Job
Creating Effective Resumes
Face-to-Face: Surviving the Interview
for a Newspaper or TV Reporting Job
Broadcast Trade Secrets
Have you done your Homework?
Preparing Your Portfolio
A PR Career?
Landing a Job in Advertising
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