Last year, I took a leap and applied for a Poynter McCormick Change Leadership fellowship. I care about newspapers and very much about journalism, so when I happened upon this opportunity, I jumped at it. It seemed like the perfect way to contribute to the cause while recharging my batteries.
My application prompted a quick response from Jill Geisler, the Poynter Institute's leadership group leader overseeing the process. "What a great note," she wrote in her reply. "I'm so pleased you've sent this information to me. You have sent along the kind of innovative ideas we're looking for."
She encouraged me to enhance my application with letters of recommendation from my editors and peers — anyone who could speak about the way I work, the ideas I push forward. Despite her encouragement and the wonderful endorsements I received from a handful of quality journalists in their own right, I didn't get the fellowship.
Instead, I received an all-inclusive invite to attend the institute's Big Ideas/Best Practices leadership conference in July and some big-time career validation:
"While we weren't able to include you in the Fellows group, it isn't because you did anything wrong or that you weren't a very strong candidate," Jill wrote in her follow-up note. "You really impressed us, Gina."
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"Because we think so highly of you, we've found a way to still involve you in the Change Leadership initiative. As part of the project, we will be holding a Best Practices conference ... designed to help newsroom leaders to share ideas on what's working and to learn from each other. Thirty people will be our guest participants at this conference — with their travel and conference expenses covered by the McCormick grant."
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"... You will be pre-approved, as they say, because of the strong endorsements you received from colleagues in your organization and because of the commitment we know you bring to your role as a leader."
It was a tremendous honor to be so seriously considered, and the conference was one of the best experiences of my career.
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