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| Photo by Sarah Hutchins |
| Chandra Czape Turner, B.A.J. ‘96, founded ED2010 to help students transition to magazine professions. She also edits CosmoGirl. |
“I hate writing,” she realized.
But she quickly found her niche as an editor, and, as founder and president of Ed2010, a networking and mentoring program for aspiring magazine editors, Czape Turner has talked with scores of students about their potential careers in magazine journalism.
“When I meet with college students they say, ‘I want to be a writer’,” she said. “That’s all good. I wanted to be a writer until I realized what editors actually did.”
In Ernie Pyle Auditorium Saturday, Czape Turner, B.A.J. ‘96, brought students into the world of magazine editing Saturday with a talk sponsored by the newly-formed IU chapter of Ed2010. She discussed breaking into a career in magazine journalism and the life cycle of a story.
While Czape Turner dished out several tips for aspiring magazine journalists, she stressed the importance of working for any kind of publication. She started early herself, working for her high school newspaper for three years. An avid magazine fan and aspiring writer, she submitted her poems to Seventeen magazine and then ran to the mailbox each month to see if one was published.
When she never saw her name in the magazine’s glossy pages, Czape Turner abandoned poetry and pursued magazine journalism.
Czape Turner attended IU because of the strong student media programs, she said. She wrote for the Indiana Daily Student for four years and worked as an intern at The American Legion Magazine, where she wrote articles on women in the military and in the healthcare profession.
“I was very fortunate that I got this job at The American Legion Magazine,” Czape Turner said. “It was a bunch of old men and me … I was a very liberal, flag-burning feminist at the time, so it was actually very strange that they wanted me.”
Junior year, Czape Turner applied for the American Society of Magazine Editors internship program. Like many other students in the program, she ranked Glamour magazine and Newsweek magazine as her top choices.
“I got American Baby,” Czape Turner said. “I cried like a brat. Now, it comes in really handy because I have a baby. But at the time, breastfeeding and bottles and babysitting was really not what I wanted to be doing. But it turned out to be a fabulous opportunity for me.”
While Czape Turner said most students looking for their first job after college should expect to have an unpaid internship followed by six months to one year looking for a job, she found her first job as an editorial assistant at Good Housekeeping magazine relatively quickly.
After working at several other publications, Czape Turner accepted an editor position at CosmoGirl magazine when the editor-in-chief, with whom she previously had worked as an editorial assistant, offered her a job.
Czape Turner walked audience members thorough the lifecycle of several magazine articles, explaining the roles of writers, designers and editors.
The process, she said, showing slides of a recent article called “Faces of War,” starts with brainstorming story ideas roughly four months in advance. Most of the articles are assigned to staff reporters, but freelance writers also take assignments in cases such as “Faces of War.”
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| Photo by Sara Hutchins |
| Czape Turner told students in her audience "there is nothing more important than having real-life experience." |
“I don’t have good reporters that are good writers,” she said. Often, editors take the reporting and rewrite it to suit the tone and the theme. While expressing the right tone in articles is important, Czape Turner said capturing the practical side of beauty and fashion is crucial and defines CosmoGirl.
She showed two fashion pages from the magazine to explain how they were put together. Dozens of accessories and items of clothing were called in before a theme – stars and stripes in Czape Turner’s example – was selected. Then one or two runway and celebrity photographs were selected out of hundreds. Finally, the editors had to find affordable items to pair with the theme.
At the end of her presentation, Czape Turner answered audience questions and encouraged student to take advantage of campus media.
“There’s no reason why every semester you can’t be working on your college paper,” she said. “I would say if it’s between dropping a class and working for a publication, drop the class. There is nothing more important than having real-life experience. I don’t care what your major is and I don’t care what your GPA is. You just need to have experience.”
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