What is your current job?
Energy and climate editor at Axios.
What was your first byline?
From an early age I thought I'd become a sportswriter. One of my high school English teachers helped get me a weekly column in a local paper chronicling my high school's teams. So I had three years' worth of clips by the time I graduated.
What was your first real job in journalism?
After a year-long internship at a California paper, I landed a job with the Albuquerque Journal in its Santa Fe bureau. I got to write about, among other things, the city's burgeoning movie industry (actress Lauren Bacall once memorably chewed me out at a film festival). Plus lots of local corruption: I broke the news that a sheriff's deputy was skimming money, something that got him sent to jail.
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How did you get it?
Once again, a teacher helped me. After the California internship I spent a summer at Northwestern, my alma mater, as an instructor in its journalism "Cherub" program. One of my former professors was good friends with the Journal's editor; that got my resume moved to the top of a very tall stack. I still had to interview for it, though. The first question the bureau chief asked was, "What'd you get on your SATs?"
What advice do you have for people looking to break into journalism?
Develop a speciality. I learned climate and energy issues on the job, but I wish I had taken more college courses about them. I also wish I had a better grounding in economics. But really, just write a lot. Clips and experience matter.