Writing My Way Into A Job: Part II

Successful 1975 UPI essay

Application Essay for Paul E. Schindler Jr. (UPI was an international news service, providing stories by teletype to media outlets)

Feb. 5, 1975

I enjoy journalism, and despite having an undergraduate degree in management from MIT, I intend to make reporting/writing/editing my career. I would like to work for UPI because the people I have met and heard of in the system are young, energetic, frank and open. They are the kind of people I would like to work with. Besides, [UPI President H.L. "Steve"] Stevenson answers his own phone and [AP President Wes] Gallagher doesn't.

I am now convinced that I prefer wire service journalism to the newspaper variety, having spent three months at the Oregon Journal and five months at the AP. Frankly, I got where I am by enjoying a good challenge, one that stretched my abilities but did not strain them.

I feel the tight writing, exacting style and "deadline every minute" requirements of UPI would be more stimulating and enjoyable than the pace at the OJ (which I am told is typical of most city dailies). Eight takes on a retiring postman and two stories a day would not be a satisfactory norm for me.

A native of Portland, Oregon, I went to the city-wide technical high school intending to go into either electronics or commercial broadcasting. I spent a lot of time at KBPS, the 1000-watt AM school district station, and got summer jobs at radio stations KLIQ, KVAN and KKEY and TV station KGW. After getting only two B's in four years, I was accepted at MIT and CalTech, and went to MIT because I thought I might want to switch to management.

My freshman year I took electronics courses, my sophomore year management courses. Simultaneously, I did a lot of work at the MIT radio station, the MIT student papers and the MIT phone system (3,000-station step-by-step, three exchanges, student-operated).

My sophomore year, I met and started working for Edwin Diamond, former senior editor of Newsweek. I liked him, and what I perceived as his career accomplishments, and by the middle of my junior year (when I was elected The Tech editor) decided to be a journalist. I have not yet regretted that decision.