My life
I probably could travel forever.
Traveling can be cheap. That’s something I relearned early on the European backpacking trip from which I just returned. I could freelance a bit, and continue out in the world.
But I’m not. I came home and am on the prowl for more permanent work. I still had money in my back account, places I wanted to see and people I wanted to meet. Why did I come home? Why are you working?
Continue reading Why I want a job: do you really want one too?
Hire Christopher Wink, a journalist and writer in Philadelphia. See my resume here, and my portfolio here.
I was given an open invitation for an entry level job writing copy for CNN.com in Atlanta. The pay was bad, and the reporting probably rudimentary, but it was a good name, a position with a clear line of succession and a straight path to New York or Los Angeles – the media markets in which professors and professionals tell young journalists we want to be. There the money is good and the reporting is top-level.
Instead, I am trying to get a job in Philadelphia – a city that has hated itself for at least the last half-century. Let me tell you why.
I am moving to Philadelphia.
Back to Philadelphia. So, I am looking for a home. Another home.
For two years, I lived on the bottom floor of a row home in the 3300-block of North Park Avenue in the Lower Tioga neighborhood of North Philadelphia.
I walked to the Allegheny stop on the Broad Street line. I had a 15-minute bicycle ride to Center City. I had a big bed, a tall ceiling and a full kitchen. I never paid more than $400, utilities included. I didn’t pay for water.
That’s not happening again. I’m just trying to remind myself I was spoiled and now that I am a big, old, adult what I need in a home has changed somewhat.
I’ve been backpacking Europe.
I returned last week and have been getting out from underneath the transition since then.
Though this is a blog on being a young journalist housed on my professional site, I can’t help but share some of the blogging and podcasting I did on WeDontSpeaktheLanguage.com.
Continue reading WDSTL Highlights: professional merit from backpacking Europe
Last month I posted about my fulfilling internship with the Philadelphia Business Journal from the spring. Then I offered advice about attracting attention to your press releases.
I got some great clips there and learned more about newsroom dynamics, but I also got a taste of nine to five life. Business reporting didn’t get me out of the office much, and most often I was pouring over hundreds of those press releases and choosing one each week to profile.
I remember thinking then and came about it again. Is my life worth profiling, chosen by some idiot 22-year-old intern?
I’m scared of the answer.
Photo from UtahWebServices.
Somebody hire me.
I have returned from more than a month of backpacking Europe and travel podcasting at WeDontSpeaktheLanguage.com.
Now I am excited to put all I have learned to work in one of the world’s great cities. So, here’s my idealistic plea.
I want challenging work in Philadelphia; work that requires me to write about, learn and explore this city and the people living in it. I want to live in it too, riding my bicycle and SEPTA and eating water ice the whole while. Oh, and let’s get one of those 44 million uninsured Americans on the right path.
See my resume here; check my portfolio.
If you know of something, contact me. Even if you just have a suggestion or some advice, or if your grandmother’s neighbor once freelanced for TV Guide. While I have applied for a few opportunities, believe me, I am open to others.
Want to know more read on.
I returned this past week from more than a month of backpacking Europe with college buddy Sean Blanda. While there, he and I travel blogged and podcasted at WeDontSpeaktheLanguage.com.
This week I am going to roll out some highlights and lessons learned, though Sean beat me to the latter.
One of those lessons, I’m afraid, will involve being hacked, as we were just that. (Check WDSTL, we may not have corrected by the time you read this).
On Nov. 9 2007, one year ago today, after founding and leading a student newspaper at the Franklin Learning Center for a school year and a half, I was asked to present and take part in a panel discussion on youth journalism at the Journalism Education Association conference held at the Marriot in Center City, Philadelphia Nov. 8-11.
The panel was called “Building Journalism Programs Outside the Curriculum.” See the program here [PDF].
Among others, I was proud to speak alongside Pulitzer-Prize winner Acel Moore, among the journalists I most respect, and Philadelphia Inquirer photographer Mike Levin.
I mostly focused on the challenges I faced, contrasted with the effect it had on the small stable of loyal participants I found.
From Oct. 1 to Nov. 4, 2008, my friend Sean Blanda and I backpacked Europe. We chronicled our experience at WeDontSpeaktheLanguage.com.
See our stops and some video below.
