Section 1. I became aware of the internship at Career Services, an office of Princeton that served as a center for graduate school, job and internship information. I was working there and looking for a summer job in the fall of 1977 when I found an internship listing (put out by Haverford perhaps but it had a green cover) that had a section on journalism, my career interest. I had been disqualified from most of them because either they did not accept students who were to enter their junior year or they were non-paying in nature. Newsday's program was listed and it was set up to catch my interest, i.e., it paid and it had a section for students between their sophomore and junior years. I applied for the intern clerk position, which has as part of it an automatic acceptance for reporting position the following summer if you do an acceptable job as a clerk.
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| Ace feature writer, 1979. |
Section 2. In terms of skills, I have been active in journalism for a long time. I was editor of my high school paper for two years, worked on my town weekly during my senior year in high school and for two summers, and have been a reporter for my college paper [The Daily Princetonian]. To be accepted, you have to be able to write, obviously, and to type. As part of the applicant's package, you must write a news article from a page of news notes, submit a biographical statement and a short statement on your interest in journalism. Each piece is written to a specified length, so prolixity should be avoided. Spelling and vocabulary proficiency are also good, not for the work you do as a clerk, but to get the acceptance itself, because obviously the editors are looking for people who, in their second year, will be dependable reporters. As for my own submissions, I did a personal information article in the form of a feature story about myself, which was fun to do because I could fabricate quotes (but not details). I polished up my journalism statement a good bit, and generally tried to be as neat and professional as possible.
Section 3. To be accepted, try to develop a solid background in journalism skills, and I assume you should work extra hard on the application; given dozens of applicants whose clips of missions are essentially indistinguishable (except for features), editors will probably look to the applications themselves as indicators of strengths and weaknesses. I never discussed the application process with Mr. Bookbinder [Bernie Bookbinder, who oversaw the internship program], nor did I see other applications, so I could not give first-hand information on the actual selection process. Nonetheless, it seems that a strong background in many phases of writing, and care and honesty and presentation, will serve you best. One Princetonian writer, who found out I had been accepted for the clerk internship while he had been rejected, asked me who I “knew.” I knew absolutely nobody before applying, and knew nothing about Newsday, either. Connections were not a factor in any cases that I knew of, although I have my suspicions about one person. (You need two recommendations, so applicants should get them from the people who are familiar with their writing. I got mine from Princeton English professors.)
Section 4. What I did. Good question. This must be answered in two parts, because I did very different tasks in the two summers I worked at Newsday.
During the summer of 1978, as a clerk, I performed the low-level dog work that must be done at any big newspaper – sorting and opening mail, typing photo requests, fetching clips from the library, sending messages to Newsday bureaus. The heart of it all, in terms of the most time-consuming, necessary and interesting / annoying part of the job, is working on the City Desk, as we say, where clerks work the telephone lines. Some calls can be routed to other departments, or to reporters, but in most cases the calls are from people wanting to relay information to the paper.
Some of the calls, perhaps between 5 and 10%, are actually newsworthy and might interest the editors. Some are from drunks, some are angry and most want to get something off their chest. The procedure I followed was to get the information from the person in capsule form, write it down along with the person's name and phone number. This should be done as quickly as possible, because the phones are always ringing or something else needs to be done. if the call seemed important, I would immediately give the information to an editor. if not, I would collect a batch of calls and type up the information and give it to an editor. This is prudent because you can always say you gave the editors the information if it gets lost once it reaches their desk. Also, since editors are usually quite busy, it lets them get to the information at their convenience.
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| Offices in Garden City. |
[Lacking a car, I rode a bike from a room I was renting in a house in Garden City to Newsday’s building near the Roosevelt Field Mall. The summer was a lonely one away from my family in Texas. My father, who lived in Nyack, NY, helped me move in but our relationship was always very stressful and that included the summer.]
One rule: Never NEVER be discourteous on the phone, however infuriating the idiots are on that call, and you do get many calls from people who think their grandson’s bar mitzvah in Plainview, for example, is something everybody on Long Island is dying to find out about. One bad episode is enough to spoil a reader, who will in turn tell his or her friends what creeps work at Newsday. It is easy to develop a “Fort Apache” mentality when you handle 150 calls during a 7-hour day shift, but you have to fight it. Most of the people calling have probably never dealt with a newspaper before, and it might have taken them several days to develop the nerve to contact the mighty Newsday. It often happens that the people are very frustrated and want advice, and to the extent possible I would help them, short of urging them to take a hike. Many want consumer help, so I would tell them to contact local consumer affairs agencies, or legal aid societies. If we were the last resort, I would tell them I would take the information and give it to the editors and nothing else, since I can never promise any kind of response. You become quite adept at getting people to hang up, and doing several things simultaneously.
Last summer I also worked several weeks as the night copy clerk, which was a quite different job. I spent most of the night at a visual display terminal (VDT, a TV screen with a typewriter attached to it) and moved articles around that were electronically sent to my station. I also typed up the next day's indices and made copies of layouts and pictures. All the work is concentrated in a small area, and consequently does not entail the frenzied running-about required of clerks. Also, the phones, except for the night copy editors, are answered by other clerks.
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Back when copy moved among
departments through pneumatic tubes, 1978 |
[I rode my bike through the dark summer streets of Garden City to reach the office. I never had a problem, and my shift ended after the sun came up. In the down moments I enjoyed reading other newspapers owned by the Times-Mirror Company, like the Dallas Times Herald and the Los Angeles Times, along with the early editions of the New York papers.]
This summer I was a reporter in the Part II, or features pull-out, section of the paper. I requested this assignment, and then requested once the summer began to be put into the specialty section. I wrote articles for the money and health theme pages, and for the last 3 weeks wrote articles for an energy supplement to appear in September. I also did one personality profile that appeared in the front section of Part II. [I profiled Barbara Rowes, a contributor to People Magazine who had written “The Book of Quotes” and a biography of Jefferson Airplane singer Grace Slick.]
[After a lot of dithering about transportation for my job as a feature writer in 1979, I finally bought a rickety green AMC Hornet station wagon from a Princeton grad student for $500. I somehow got it registered in Trenton and drove out to Old Bethpage in Nassau County, where I lived with a Newsday librarian, Lillian Marx. We had a warm relationship that I remember fondly. At summer’s end, I surprised her with a copy of Sophie’s Choice, which she was eager to read.]
Section 5. The work as a clerk was at times frustrating, when the phones were ringing, the editors were yelling and the mail was stacked up by the boxes. But I had the feeling that I had really contributed to the operations. The other intern on the Nassau desk, where we were working at Newsday’s main office in Garden City, wrote three articles near the end of the summer, but I wrote none. It was not a requirement to write as a clerk, although of course it is fun to do so. It’s not your usual summer job, because of the pace and the intrinsic smallness of the individual jobs. The main benefit is the pay, and the chance to return as a reporter. I enjoyed being a clerk because it gave me the opportunity to see a big newspaper up close, and to meet the people involved in its operation. At times I thought the summer would have been better spent, in a professional sense, had I gotten a job writing at a paper, but the chance to return to Newsday and write was a powerful incentive. You don't have to apply for the second year, when the competition for positions is more intense.
A day in the life of an intern, sorting the mail.
There is a fair amount of frustration during the first week or two as a clerk because there are many individual tasks to be mastered. The mailboxes are only in an approximate order according to sections. Mail arrives for people who have long since left the paper, and it takes time to separate the current from past staffers. I was initially gun-shy around the phones, but with practice this disappears, as does nervousness around the forbidding VDT. I personally like the pace of the place, but everything is carried forth on a professional level, and people should realize that the work should be taken seriously.
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| Editor Howie Schneider and reporter Allison Mitchell, 1978 |
[Answering phones on the National Desk had its historic surprises. In 1978, Allen Weinstein published The Hiss-Chambers Case, which argued that Alger Hiss was, in fact, a Soviet spy. Newsday must have been covering the book’s assertions and this national replay of the early history of the Cold War, because one day I picked up the phone and had this conversation:
Me: Newsday national desk, how can I help you?
Caller: I’d like to speak with Arnold Abrams [I think that was the request. Abrams was a reporter on the high-profile National Desk near where I sat.]
Me: May I ask who is calling?
Caller: This is Alger Hiss.
Me: One moment please (puts caller on hold). Arnie, it’s Alger Hiss calling for you on line 1!
Arnie: Oh come on!
Me: No, really, it’s Alger Hiss!
Convinced by my youthful confidence, Arnie took the call. The rest is history.]
As a reporter, I was left to my own devices. Half of my articles were self-generated; that is, I would present my editor with ideas and he would indicate the ones he would like me to develop. This I would do, and after about a week of calls and writing I would submit the piece, which usually received fairly light editing, although this was only in my case. My articles were not written under deadline, unlike the cityside, as we say, reporters, so I can concentrate on thoroughness and “style” in a relaxed setting. Sometimes I was assigned articles. The work on the energy supplement was also assigned. Since this is essentially what I plan to do, in one form or another, with my professional life, I enjoyed it. The only part that bothered me was that none of my articles appeared until the fourth week. This is due, however, to the fact that Part II works on a long lead time and articles generally do not appear until about two weeks after they are submitted.
Section 6. I always liked the working environment at Newsday, because you're really involved in keeping things going. The other clerks and writers and editors are, for the great majority, interesting, loquacious individuals who are quite helpful. I was sorry to leave my reporting job.
Section 7. As for supervisors, I spent most of my time last summer working with other clerks, rather than under the direction of the woman who had control over them, the secretary of the Nassau Editor. As a reporter, I had an editor to whom I sent my articles, and who would consult with me when he had questions about them.
It was not an intense, day-to-day sort of professional relationship simply because I sent the stories in at wide intervals, and rarely needed direction when researching them. Mr. [Kevin] Lahart, once I had been around him for a week and became acclimated to the working environment, was a competent, friendly man who I came to like a great deal by summer’s end. Had I been a regular news reporter, circumstances might have been different, because I gravitate toward feature, rather than news, writing, and my stories might have needed heavier editing than they received in Part II. This, however, is speculation.
[That summer of 1979 had plenty of news. I limited my driving due to the energy crisis. Near the end of my internship, Yankee catcher Thurman Munson was killed when his crashed his Cessna Citation while practicing landings at an airport in Ohio on August 2.
Meanwhile, I made energetic but fruitless efforts to create a social life. I recorded my misadventures in the essay "Fear and Loathing on the Long Island Singles Scene," which appeared in the Daily Princetonian on September 12, 1979 and was reprinted in my 2012 memoir, "A Kosher Dating Odyssey."
I did better hanging out with Larry, a Princeton classmate who was an intern reporter for Newsday in Queens. We saw the movie "The In-Laws" and heard The Tubes perform in Central Park, performing their classics "White Punks on Dope" and "Don't Touch Me There."]
Section 8. Other than getting approval for the initial assignment of a story, I was totally on my own in shaping the material. They could send it back and make me fiddle with the lead, as sometimes happened, but the essential work was mine, and I appreciated the freedom I was given, especially the freedom to follow up on my own story suggestions. The clerks have certain jobs they do as a matter of course, although sometimes editors will give them a job to do. They work under a different sort of freedom.
Section 9. As mentioned, three of my six articles were self-initiated, which editors like because it speaks of creativity aggressiveness, etc., etc. Even if eight of 10 article ideas are rejected, the two that click are all that you need to keep busy. story ideas are crucial in the business, because they bring individual experience and perception to the process, an editor might not have a story on an interesting topic simply because his or her ideas going directions apart from that idea through suggestions these blind spots are filled in also, Mr. Bookbinder request that all interns let him know what they think about the program when the summer ends, and this is a good way to have operation input into its operation.
Section 10. As a clerk I overcome came my essential hesitancy to do things with telephones. I never like to call people for stories, which can be a big stumbling block for a potential reporter. I got so I could leap right in, flip from line to line, hit the hold button like a pro and generally perform competently in the job. but since my life's ambition is hardly to be a receptionist, the skills that counted came during the summer as a reporter. I had been writing for newspapers for years, but never at this rarified a level, and with professional editors. It was not so much a matter of learning new skills, but of learning or discovering new attitudes toward my abilities, and finding that I do indeed have the ability to be a professional journalist or writer at a very high level of the profession. The clips and experience of having worked at the 10th largest paper in the country are of incalculable value, certainly more impressive than if I had continued to write for my hometown weekly, the Upper Valley Progress. The contacts I have made are also of great importance, plugging me right into the New York scene, or so I hope.
Section 11. For advice see the answer to the second and third questions applicants should act accordingly.
Section 12. My internship, as you might have guessed was highly successful. I was good enough and lucky enough to get an internship in my field of interest. Because they are available in a wide range of fields, with many types of requirements, I would urge people to try for them. Certainly the ones in journalism are the subject of hot competition by talented people. People should not make a few applications and then pray, because many talented writers get rejected. The trick is, however, to send out enough applications to get accepted someplace, given whatever pay and geographic limits you may place for yourself. not everybody can work at the Washington Post, for example, but small dailies often take college students, and weekly papers can be very helpful as the starting point. I began in my weekly, covering city council, features and other articles, although this was a permanent position rather than an internship. Such jobs provide the real thing: writing experience in real-life situations that, with dedication, hustle and talent, can be parlayed into much better situations.
This advice is general in nature, and would apply to students interested in working in government, medicine and any other field they might want to enter. Since I am knowledgeable on the subject of journalism internships, this advice definitely applies to this field. They can be either good or bad, depending on the amount of work you put into them--a cliched thought, perhaps, but applicable, anyway. They can give you valuable contacts, sometimes a good salary, and usually exposure to different situations and people than what you are accustomed to This might involve relocations for the summer (and in my case for this summer, the harrowing experience of buying my first used car) and exposure to a new environment, but this can be exhilarating in and of its own right. As for advice, I would recommend that people talk to students who have participated in the programs to get an idea of the requirements and types of work and also, if possible, to visit the work site.
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| My AMC Hornet, American Iron of 1979. |
The summer ended and I returned to Princeton and my spot as the Sports Features Editor of the Daily Princetonian. To my surprise, I got a job as a reporter-researcher at Forbes magazine in New York, starting a week after graduation. I moved to Brooklyn and donated the Hornet to Goodwill as soon as possible. I didn't have another car until I moved to Connecticut in 1991. My social opportunities increased to an acceptably intense level of highs and lows during my life in New York in the 1980s. 
