Go Down in Circulation to Move Up to a Daily?

By Joe Grimm
Q. What's more important on your resume, daily experience or circulation numbers?

INTERACT WITH JOE

* Follow Joe on Twitter to find out who's going where in the journalism industry.  * Join Joe's Ask the Recruiter group on Facebook. To get your question answered on this page, send it to Joe. Please include your full name in your message. If you prefer that your surname not be published, please indicate that. Sign up to receive Ask the Recruiter by e-mail. (sent Monday-Friday at 8 a.m.)

For the last two years, I've worked at a free weekly in the D.C. suburbs that claims a circulation of over 150,000. These days my paper's in a slump and laying people off left and right, and morale is in the basement. I've got an offer to work at a 22,000-circulation daily a little farther out, in a more rural area, for basically similar pay.

Currently, I have no daily experience. Is it worth the drop in eyeballs on my stories to be able to write daily on my resume?

Thanks,

Put-upon near the Potomac

A. If you asked me solely about size vs. cycle, I would tell you that a move from a free weekly to a smaller paid daily will still be seen by most editors as an advance.

Much will depend on how your responsibilities and the quality of your work grow.

When you overlay the facts that you feel put-upon in a newsroom where you've been for two years, morale is in the basement and you have to duck pink slips, I'd be packing.