Published Messenger Newspapers, Adelaide, May 28, 2003


DEAR SIR/MADAM, I AM APPLYING...


"I am enquiring into the possibility of a position within your company that may or may not become available in the very near future. Initially, my choice of employment was within the tattooing industry, this type of trade would have utilised my fine eye for detail and the ability to use my imagination in a very creative sense. I would like to do something with my artistic ability, as I need to be employed in an industry that can utilise all of my creative talents.''

THE Year 12 school leaver who wrote this gem was seeking a career in journalism at Messenger Newspapers. I keep it close handy, along with the letter from a gentleman who offered to write a "best buys'' column on the Central Market. The writer said he had a "passion for greengrocery''. Neither of them got a job unfortunately.
Lots of people wrongly think they would make good journalists including many who, somehow or another, are still in the game. There is no lack of applications and a fair proportion of them come from disillusioned school teachers seeking a career change: "I haf bin a teechr for elevum yrs & and sik off it.'' Depending on how you look at it, journalism is either a helter-skelter joyride or a good way to hide your intellectual shortcomings. Or both. One route is to adopt a set of prejudices early in your career and stick to them no matter what evidence to the contrary is presented. A career in talkback radio is then assured. In the old days, based on a short job interview and an inflated CV, the recruitment of journalists was a hit'n'miss lottery from which I regarded one good pickup in three to be a satisfactory average. Now, fed by a steady supply of UniSA journalism graduates, the candidates must do at least a week's work first to sort them out, virtually removing the need for an interview. Which is a shame in some respects. In the old days, after first trying to make the nervous applicant feel as comfortable as possible, the first question was: "So, are you or have you ever been a virgin?'' The interest lay not so much in the answer as in the reaction, from which you could tell a lot about a person's suitability for journalism. Political correctness and various anti-harassment laws have since taken their toll. Now, job interviews are done strictly by the book: name, rank and cereal preference but nothing much about age, marital status, medical condition or how often they clean their teeth. All a bit sterile and ho-hum. Thank goodness for internal staff newsletters. Here, with her permission to reprint, is what a new Messenger journo volunteered about herself in our newsletter: "I have never been into the 'girlie' aspects of life and choose to have a pint and a ciggy while wearing my ripped jeans each night when I get home from work. I don't even own a pair of high heels. When I was 17 I shaved my head and am tempted to do it again. I have three sisters and one brother and am the youngest by many years _ each of us has a different mother/father combination and so we range from red hair to blonde, fair skin to Asian.'' Wow, you just cannot get that stuff from a job interview. And she has turned out just fine.