What is your current job?
I'm a freelance science and medical reporter and a journalism professor at the University of Delaware.
What was your first byline?
Oh! It was The Badger Herald, one of the student papers at U-Wisconsin Madison. I think I covered condom day and I had to follow around a guy dressed as a condom. My last name is Fallik. It was hilarious and mortifying at the same time. ( I can't remember if these were the condoms handed out — "Get Lucky, Bucky.")
What was your first real job in journalism?
I was the night cop/ education reporter at The (Troy) Record. I worked noon to midnight and covered murders, stabbing, school board.
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How did you get it?
I literally bullied my first editor into giving me a job. he tells this story proudly. I had just graduated and had a bunch of internships but I wasn't coming from a major journalism school.
I sent a bunch of clip packages to editors in upstate New York saying that I would be in their area in September and would they mind meeting with me? Because I knew they didn't have job openings, but I needed practice with the whole "interview process" and would love some feedback.
I was not in the upstate NY area. I came from the Baltimore-DC area. I had just decided that was where I was going to target bc small papers and driving distance from home. My grandparents drove with me bc they didn't want me meandering around the wilds of Albany alone (never mind I had just come from four months in Berkeley and four months in London traipsing around..)
I got a bunch of interviews, but I really liked The (Troy) Record and the editor, Rex Smith. I could tell he was not really taking me seriously. He came from Newsday and was known as an icon. He literally looks like a lion with the sonorous voice and wild mane.
So I got mad. I was all, "LOOK, I really want this and I want to be a reporter. I love this job. I know I'm young but hire me for three months and if I suck, fire me."
I startled him. A couple months later, someone left and he gave me a call. I rewarded him by pissing off an environmental company so much they took out 13 neon-yellow billboards saying I was fat and he was a dog. He made it into his Christmas card.
What advice do you have for people looking to break into journalism?
FIND OUT ABOUT THE PEOPLE WHO ARE INTERVIEWING YOU. Now that I'm on the other end and interview students for internship scholarships and am on hiring committees in academia, I cannot tell you how annoying it is when people come in without knowing anything about the program or who I am. You're applying for a journalism job, be a fucking reporter. Show some initiative.
Find Dawn on her website and LinkedIn.