At the end of Clarissa Explains It All, Melissa Joan Hart’s character moves to Manhattan for a reporting job at a newspaper. Today, however, landing a post-graduate journalism job isn’t as easy as waving your teenage wand. (Zing.) Gourmet just folded, newspapers are in turmoil, etc. So what’s a bright-eyed, diploma-clutching, aspiring writer to do? Start a blog? Fight for links? Pray for print? We turned to three graduates – a famed NYU Local writer, a former Washington Square News editor-in-chief, and Local’s entertainment editor emeritus – to find out.

Note: Two former WSN editor-in-chiefs declined to comment; they actually have print jobs one has a print job and the other a job at a website (though his e-mail to us read, “Man, I wish I had a print job.”) One former WSN news editor didn’t write back, but the last time we saw her she seemed drunk and told us: “Yeah, I worked in journalism for a while. Now I work at a shoe boutique.” If any of you NYU-grads out there want to participate, e-mail us.

After the jump, the testimonies of our three contributors.

Justin Spees, Gallatin ‘09:

First of all, I’m not sure how much the Employers’ Union in New York knows about Gallatin, but I have yet to be asked about my individualized concentration. Understand that all start up jobs are simple jobs, and I wonder if things would be any different were I bearing an English degree, or even a law degree, beyond the fact that my prospective employers would be wearing ties. The job market is a difficult business right now, and hats off if you’ve found credible work, but if you’re giving serious thought to what your prospects look like because they don’t look like much, this one’s for you.

The act plays out like this: qualifications: college grad, NYULocal non-editor, WSN contributor, a music blog that wasn’t pitchfork or stereogum. Events: dozens of unanswered applications responding to postings on mediabistro, craiglist, and careernet, a brief interview with a fashion magazine, two phone interviews with a media blog and its sister marketing company, and a tutorial preceding possible follow-up interview for an editorial position. All internships. All unpaid. Results: none. Keep kicking. I try to go to a lot of parties. The whole ordeal has been made less barren by a summer job a friend found for me with a state delegate in Northern Virginia, but the point remains: if your heart is set on media, start now. Or know somebody.

Also, know the industry. The reason blogs remain such a militant power in journalism is because there are enough people willing to contribute to them for free. Most online companies are very small, they don’t spend a lot of money, and they’re flooded with capable staff writers who have accepted that they’re employment is contingent on their designation as interns. Internships theoretically provide long term opportunity, so we take them. What they actually provide is experience, which translates primarily into a chance to show somebody that you’re good at what you do. So be good at what you do. Be very good at what you do, and expect as little as possible from it. That’s how you get a media job in New York.

Sarah Portlock, CAS ‘07:

I graduated from NYU in May 2007 and since then, I’ve been working as a fulltime freelancer in New York as a breaking news reporter for Newsday, hyper-local news blogger for the Brooklyn Heights Blog, and real estate reporter for The Real Deal magazine, as well as writing articles for various other publications. I have a wide variety of interesting clips to show for it, I’ve paid every bill in full and on time, and, yes, I had a lucrative flexible schedule. But it hasn’t been easy.

For nine months I was a staff reporter at the Brooklyn Paper, but was laid off in January owing to cost cuts at the paper. Rupert Murdoch bought it one month later. After graduation, I worked at the New York Sun, but was laid of in January 2008 when the paper let its freelancers go. The paper folded nine months later. I was an on-call reporter for Newsday, but as the paper underwent its sale from Tribune to Cablevision, the phone rang less often. I came to understand that each layoff was through no fault of my own.

To say the industry is shaky out there is an understatement. The best thing you can do — and what I am doing now — is to differentiate yourself from the pack, and get multimedia skills. And network.

At NYU, I was editor-in-chief of the Washington Square News right at the time we were realizing the importance of revamping its Web site and creating a strong web presence. I am now studying digital journalism at Columbia University, and despite relearning how to write a lede, the skills classes where I learn how to shoot and edit audio and video are worth it.

To calm your fears, yes, there will always be a need for solid reporters who can write quickly, and well, on deadline, but we are very fortunate and of a generation that is still young enough to reinvent ourselves as online reporters. Stay in touch with editors, internship coordinators, and your professors — you never know where the next job lead will come from. Sometimes, what an editor needs is a good cub reporter who knows how to use a camera as a photojournalist. When the editor says, “Can you work?” and it’s 8 pm on a Thursday, or 8 am on a Saturday, the answer is always, “Yes.” Prove yourself, and the jobs will come.

Joe Coscarelli, CAS ‘09:

I started my first journalism internship in January of my freshmen year and I graduated from NYU a year early with an undergraduate degree in journalism. But this isn’t bragging, it’s self-deprecation. Almost three years later all I have to prove my worth is a lot of clips (today we call them links) and decent search engine optimization. (Google me!)

I have occasionally been paid to write and report; I have more often done it for free. And in journalism classes and “for credit internships,” I have essentially paid to write. I am no longer a student but I am not financially independent, and I consider myself lucky that up to this point, I have not struggled for my own livelihood. I’ve had help in pursuing what many have told me is an impossible goal.

Five weeks after finishing my last class, I am struggling to break into what appears to be a dying industry. I have nearly exhausted three years of mostly tepid NYC media contacts and have fired off Gmails with a wish, a prayer and some of those aforementioned links, hoping to somehow transform overnight from disposable free labor to… someone’s assistant or fact-checker. “Welcome to the American working class.”

To say I’ve landed on my feet is too generous — I’ve settled for landing on my knees. I intern five days a week for a noticeable, but ultimately unfair stipend, but am fortunate enough to live a blogger’s dream: I write about things that interest me; I work from home in the mornings; I wear the clothes I want; and I make no money.

I need a bigger paycheck, and will do whatever it takes to find one, but I’ve already picked an industry and my skill set and experience are rather focused. And if in six months or one year, I’m back in my parents’ house or applying for graduate programs and for more student loans, I will also continue to write for free — again and again — because what else would I do? And because, for now, I’m green enough to believe that they’d pay me if they could.

Adapted and updated from what I originally wrote here.