<p>I have a question about preparing clips for a job in journalism.</p>
<p>I know you are supposed to photocopy the article exactly as it appears in print.</p>
<p>And I’ve got tons of experience through my school’s newspaper…front page, center-piece, you name it.</p>
<p>The problem is, a lot of times the article has been edited to include typos, grammatical mistakes, and ambiguities, even in the leads themselves! The editors here are great at arranging a story in an interesting fashion, but they absolutely stink at the finer points of writing. The frustrating thing is the writers always go over their stories after the editors have finished with it, but somehow things get changed around again before print.</p>
<p>What do I do if I have a story that I spent a lot of time reporting and has great information, but also unfortunately showcases - in my opinion - an embarassing quality of writing?</p>
<p>Been there. Kinda. I’ve had editors cut my work for space and sometimes I am not at all happy with their edits. However, I’ve never sent a piece with bad grammar or spelling and while I would expect a good editor to catch something, you cannot depend on an editor to correct spelling and grammar. Now… if they are rewriting your work and THEY made the errors… I don’t know what to tell you. Sounds like you need some sort of veto power over your work.</p>
<p>Select the best examples of your work. (That’s where your own editing skills come in.) Include clips that you can talk about in an interview. Don’t apologize for small goofs. Focus on the positive.</p>
<p>Right, THEY made the errors when rewriting sections. </p>
<p>I do admit that moving sections around or including little bits of extra information can improve the content and flow of the story. But I don’t know why they can’t do that without making a typo or grammatical error every sentence? </p>
<p>I really want to just cut and paste it all into Word and rewrite the story minus the errors and submit THAT version, but apparently you can’t do that :P</p>
<p>My best work includes more than little goofs (ex. ambiguities in the lead). It’s just really frustrating.</p>
<p>I’m an ex veteran newspaper reporter. I would definitely send the best clips I have, pointing out if necessary where your work was altered. In fact, editors at the top levels of journalism would rather see your ORIGINAL version if you have it - before the editors got to it, for better or worse. It’s always worth keeping your originals.</p>
<p>This is part of being a journalist. As others have mentioned, send your best clips.</p>
<p>Also note that potential employers will evaluate you by not just the quality of your writing but by the quality of the publication in which your work has been published. So if your work is in a publication with shoddy editing, that shows something, unfortunately in your case.</p>