Talk about a high response rate. Westword editor Patricia Calhoun describes the onslaught–of resumes and media attention–that followed after the Denver magazine announced the availability of a job reviewing medical marijuana dispensaries.
Within five minutes of that posting, we had our first application for this extremely part-time job. Within ten minutes, our first media inquiry. And the applications and media calls keep coming.
This morning — while on hold with CBS, which called me just after 4 a.m., then postponed the interview because another segment ran long (breaking news? A Balloon Boy update?) — I fished another fifty applications out of our spam filter. This latest wave was apparently inspired by an AP story sent out this week; the responses are coming in from around the globe — from applicants and media outlets alike. The BBC. And Irish talk show. Unfortunately, we closed off applications last week, after we’d collected more than 200 of them.
They don’t call it the Mile High City for nothing, et cetera.
Megan Garber is an assistant editor at the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University. She was formerly a CJR staff writer.