By Jillian Doria Ogawa
I started my day on Sept. 17, 2008 by interviewing sources for a follow-up story to my front-page article published in the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader.

By 12:30 p.m., I received an unofficial pink slip through the rumor mill — I found out through coworkers that I was going to be laid off.

[...]

By Andres A. Navarro

There was one thing I did not expect to have to do during my internship: grunt work.

Nor did I expect that doing such work would teach me something about journalism.

I went into my internship believing I would be fighting for A-1 space with every story I wrote – and I’m sure other [...]

By Aaron Montoya

It was Sunday in Denver. Sundays are usually pretty slow because the bosses aren’t there to ride people, the office is fairly empty and Monday’s paper is pretty well set.
My assignment for the day was meant to produce a feature photo for the city section. There was a Jewish celebration going [...]

By Colleen Fitzpatrick

On a beautiful late-summer day, CQS Program Co-founder John C. Quinn treated a couple of Rhode Island-based Scholars to Sunday brunch.

Talia Buford (Summer 2004) and Nandini Jayakrishna (Summer 2008), along with CQS Career Coach Colleen Fitzpatrick, relaxed over dishes of eggs, pasta and lobster at the Shelter Harbor Inn in Westerly, R.I.

John C. [...]

By John Hagen, CQS ‘99
In a crazy move, I decided three years ago to leave my post as a newspaper photojournalist and try to sell my work on a free-lance basis. It was a blessing and a curse.
The blessing was that I left my post before any layoffs were threatened. I never had to go [...]

1) Be proactive in finding sources, especially if the story is a sensitive one. Don’t rely only on public relations personnel. Seek help from newsroom colleagues.

2) Keep an ongoing list of the sources interviewed – and needed — for the story.

3) Once you’ve interviewed someone, take time to jot down a brief summary of what [...]

By Jakob Rodgers, CQS ‘09

With each passing month at the Greeley (Colo.) Daily Tribune, my story assignments have grown ever more challenging. After a year and a half at the paper and about two-thirds of the way through my Chips Quinn internship, I was assigned to a story that would receive the hallowed “Special Report” label [...]

By Leezel G. Tanglao, CQS ‘03

The news seems to be everywhere: Layoffs, buyouts, newspapers folding, closing forever.

For both veteran and rookie journalists, the journalism we once knew 20 years ago, 10 years ago, even a year ago may not be the journalism we practice tomorrow.

Despite these challenges, however, some things haven’t changed.

Although our lives as [...]