Jere Hester had what many would consider a dream job in journalism. As city editor of the New York Daily News, he helped supervise dozens of reporters and shape the rambunctious tabloid’s coverage of the nation’s biggest and most vibrant metro area.
It was a job he’d worked hard for, maybe too hard: After years of putting in 12-hour-plus days (as well as nights, weekends and holidays), Hester, then 40, realized that while he still enjoyed the work, he wanted new challenges – and more time with his wife and young daughter.
So when he came across a listing for a teaching job at a graduate journalism program being started by the City University of New York several years ago, “I decided to apply, but I figured there would be a million reasons I wouldn’t get the job: no academic experience, etc.,” Hester says.
“Even if I somehow got the position, it would mean a substantial pay cut as well as leaving a job I always wanted…”
Hester got the job. Today he runs the school’s NY City News Service, a multimedia, web-based wire service in which CUNY students chronicle trends and events in New York neighborhoods.
Journalists who become teachers say it can be a rewarding change, the chance to pass on some hard-won wisdom to the next generation of eager young novices. It can also be an opportunity to acquire the multimedia newsgathering skills that many j-schools are teaching.
And after working the long, strange hours that are part and parcel of the news business, many journalists-turned-teachers revel in the luxury of having holidays (to say nothing of entire summers) off.
Less Pay, A Slower Pace
But there are adjustments to be made. Teaching jobs often pay less, and journalists accustomed to the frenetic pace of the newsroom often have trouble throttling down to the decidedly more sedate pace of the classroom.
“There simply wasn’t, at least at first, the same type of adrenaline rush that comes with doing daily journalism in a large, intensively competitive market,” Hester says.
Jena Heath was education editor of the San Antonio Express-News, a job she loved. But print journalism was in an economic tailspin, and Heath’s paper had not been spared.
“Everything about it was good except for the fact that the news business was collapsing around me,” Heath says. “We had layoff after layoff. I was committed to the paper, but I’m a pragmatist. I let go of my romantic hopes for the future of print journalism.”
Heath, in her 40s, had other reasons for wanting to make a change: Her editing job was a long commute from her home in Austin. And she and her husband were in the process of adopting a baby girl from China.
So after roughly a yearlong job search, she was hired to teach at St. Edward’s University, a 5,000-student Catholic institution in Austin, taking a $15,000 pay cut in the process.
She, too, has had to adjust to the different pace.
“I’ll be running around with a sense of urgency and realize everyone is in their office and there’s no need to run around like a chicken with my head cut off,” she says.
Still, she enjoys the less-pressured atmosphere. “Now I have the ability to step back and read and think about the craft of journalism,” she says. “I’m turning on another side of my brain that’s been on hiatus for a long time.”
And, she adds, “I have my own office for the first time in my life.”
