By Meena Thiruvengadam, CQS ‘03

We came by train, bus and car, and a Chips Quinn tote bag hanging from a mailbox in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., told us we were home.

More than a dozen Chipsters spanning the years gathered at Chips Quinn Scholars Program Director Karen Catone’s home in Reston, Va., last Saturday to connect or reconnect with one another, reminisce about internships gone by and to help one another plot paths through journalism’s uncertain future.

(Photos courtesy of Rhina Guidos, Rick Rojas and Richard White)

“With the way the economy has been the past few years, the uncertainty related to finding a job has been pretty high for me,” said Richard White, a Spring 2010 Scholar who is now an intern at The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Being part of the program has helped to alleviate his worries, he said, adding, “The Chipster network is so big, you never know when or where your next opportunity will come from.”

He’s right. In the seven years since I completed my Chips Quinn internship in 2003, I’ve found that some of the best job leads, career advice and skills coaching I have ever received have come from my Chips Quinn network. I still look to my Chips Quinn mentors when researching career transitions, finding my footing in a new beat or working to improve my writing. In a world where staffs are shrinking and time is becoming ever more precious, Chipsters are stepping in to fill the void left in many newsrooms.

From the turnout at Karen’s house, it is clear that that legacy will continue.

Just consider how far one Chipster traveled to attend the reunion in the nation’s capital and how hard he’s working to encourage his Chipster family.

Ronald Clark (Summer 2007), a sports reporter at The Record in Hackensack, N.J., made the long drive from New Jersey and, when he wasn’t busy making the rest of us laugh, congratulated the recent graduates on their achievements.

“Congratulations,” he said many times that night. “People just don’t say that enough.”


Meena Thiruvengadam is a business reporter for Dow Jones Newswire in Washington, D.C. She was a Summer 2003 Scholar at The Salt Lake Tribune in Salt Lake City.