Margaret Sullivan
Margaret couldn’t envision herself staying at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, NY for four years, so she transferred to Georgetown after her freshman year. Once in Washington D.C., she declared English as her major and got a job at Ganette News Service as a clerk. This proved to be a stepping stone toward a career in journalism. “After my junior year of college I worked at the Niagara Gazette. I got great experience and made contacts. It served me well. The most important thing college kids can do is get working experience. That’s more important than grades and extracurriculars,” said Margaret.
Margaret started graduate school at the Northwestern Medill School of Journalism immediately after getting her B.A. “I graduated from Georgetown in May, and finished [Northwestern] the following May,” Margaret said. “I never looked up. I have this master's degree that has been great asset. I never had to say I need to quit my job and go back to school.”
In 2012, Margaret left her job as News Editor of the Buffalo News to be the Public Editor of The New York Times, where she acts as a liaison between the readers and the editorial staff.
Highlights
On Internships: “In my sophomore year, I was planning on working at a dry cleaners and Burger King.”
On Journalism: “Journalism tends to be very consuming. Whatever time you have, it will take up.”
On Graduate School: “I think if I had gone to med school I would have flunked out. I was playing to my strength.”
How to Get Hired: “I tend to hire people I knew something about. One of the ways I get to know someone is through internships. Usually if they get a job, it’s not straight out of an internship, but maybe they go to a smaller paper and we watch them. It’s sort of like a farm team.”
On Prestigious Universities: “Going to one of the most selective schools in the U.S. is not always a good predictor of how a person will perform on the job.”
On Moving to NYC: “My child rearing was over with. I wanted a change. We sold the house and car and moved into one-bedroom in the Flatiron area of Manhattan. I’m having a blast.”