by Juliana Pelaez

If you watch big news stations like NBC 5 or ABC News, you’ll notice that a lot of reporters have been there for quite some time. None of them are your fresh-out-of-college reporter. With this it leaves the question of where they can go to get that first job.

John Quinones, an ABC news correspondent, whose name today is one that will spark the eyes of many, had trouble finding a place in the field after he graduated. He still holds many of those letters of rejection.

“Fifty letters of rejection that I got when I wanted to be a local reporter in Texas. When I was getting started. I had to go back to graduate school. I went to Columbia University,” Quinones said. “I couldn’t get a job in television, even though I wanted it so desperately. And I was applying everywhere.”

But even after graduating from Columbia and getting his foot into the door, some still pushed him away.

Quinones career went from starting out as a radio news editor at KTRH in Houston, Texas from 1975 to 1978 and he also worked as an anchor and reporter for KPRC-TV in Houston. He later reported for WBBM-TV in Chicago. Then in 1982, Quiñones started as a general assignment correspondent with ABC News based in Miami.

“Oftentimes, when I was getting started, I would be out in the field for weeks reporting on a story. And then as the story got bigger, they would send a more seasoned reporter to take the story basically away from me,” Quinones said.

Even though his passion lies within broadcast journalism, the lack of experience compared to a seasoned reporter apparently lacked credibility for the bosses in his news outlet. And his move from place to place to New York created a reluctance from others to allow him to initially gain that trust.

“So, when you’re young, you have more of a hesitancy in New York, people who don’t know you. You don’t have a proven track record…So, you wind up having to prove yourself more often. When as you gain experience and your stories continue to ring true,” Quinones said.

As a current graduate student, I had some struggles right off the bat after I finished my undergraduate degree. I was ignored and rejected from some positions, so I went to DePaul to advance my education. But among my peers here they said that people only hire if you have the experience from student media rather than the work you put in the classroom.

While that may be true for most, Quinones shared that what matters most is that your curiosity trumps experience. You want to find the truth and share it from your own experience. It may take some time to gain that credibility but what matters is that you can and want to do the job.

Or as Quinones said, “you will get big footed until you become a bigfoot.”