Ask anyone enrolled in San Francisco State University’s Journalism 609 Publication Laboratory and they’ll tell you: It’s no walk in the park. Sure, it can be a lot of fun and is about as close to real-world newsroom experience as you can get in college, but deadlines are strict and any faltering can result in a domino-effect of problems — and a whole staff pointing angry fingers.
Being on Publication for two semesters is a graduation requirement for all journalism majors. Publication laboratory branches off into four segments: newspaper, magazine, photo, and online. Magazine is perhaps the most sought-after staff and yet offers the least positions to students, as it is the smallest.
Mary Reeser, a fourth-year journalism student at San Francisco State, is wrapping up her first semester as a member of the [X]Press Magazine staff. As a staff writer, her requirement for the semester is at least five 750-word stories. Sounds easy, right? Wrong. All stories must be pitched to the editor-in-chief in the form of a query letter at the start of production for each issue. In order for pitches to be accepted, story ideas must be fresh, realistic (accessible to the reporter and photographer), and relevant to the theme of the issue. With only three issues per semester and an overcrowded staff all looking to make good on their story counts, this can be quite a challenge. Here, 21-year-old Reeser discusses the stories she has written and plans to write in order to fulfill her requirement.
