The first time I ever tried selling an ad for The Newtonite, I somehow ended up getting offered a job.

I was a freshman—eager to “contribute,” whatever that meant. At the time, I figured selling an ad for The Newtonite couldn’t be that hard. How difficult could it be to convince a local business to buy a square of space in a high school newspaper?

Spoiler. It was harder than I thought.

But somehow, on my first attempt, I lucked out. I walked into a local store, nervously pitched our paper, and—shockingly—it worked. The owner agreed to buy an ad for our next issue. I felt like a business genius… until they looked at me mid-signature and asked, “So, how old are you?”

“Uh… fourteen?”

They laughed. “We’d hire you to help with our marketing, but you’re way too young.”

I didn’t walk out with a job offer, but I left with a realization. Journalism and marketing go hand in hand. You can have the best stories in the world, but if there’s no funding, there’s no paper. And if we wanted The Newtonite to not just survive, but thrive, we needed a strong financial backbone.

When I became EIC the next year, I made it my mission to overhaul how we handled advertising. Before, ad sales were kind of an afterthought—something people did if they had extra time. I knew we needed something more structured, so I onboarded a business staff, with Marina and Jacob leading. They were naturals—good at talking to people, persistent, and, most importantly, not afraid of rejection (which came often).

We even started having “ad parties”—and no, they weren’t as fun as they sound. Picture over forty of us crammed into the newsroom, everyone with a phone in hand, working off a giant spreadsheet with a list of local businesses. We’d go down the list, calling every single one. Half the calls went to voicemail, some hung up immediately, and occasionally, we’d get someone genuinely interested.

I’ll never forget the time we called Fiorella’s during the lunch rush. The manager answered, and before we could even get into our pitch, she cut us off, “I don’t need any more nonsense teenagers calling during rush hour!” Fair enough, Fiorella. But we didn’t give up. We called back—not during rush hour—and guess what? We landed that ad. Persistence pays off.

But it wasn’t just about businesses. Parent ads for our Graduation Special were another beast entirely. We managed to sell over 20 of them for the issue, bringing in more than $2,000—enough to fund our annual New York press trip. But designing them? That was chaos. Picture trying to keep track of dozens of ads, each with emotional messages like “We’re so proud of you, Emily!” or “On to bigger and better things!” We had to count them, then count again, making sure we didn’t miss a single heartfelt tribute. My personal favorite? A bar code one parent included that, when scanned, led to a video diary of their kid’s entire life. Tears were shed.

And behind all of this? Our graphic design team, scrambling to turn vague instructions like “Make it cute, but not too cute” into polished ads. It was hard—keeping businesses happy, parents emotional, and our design team sane.

But through all the chaos—cold calls, ad parties, the Fiorella’s incident, and all those “We’re so proud of you!” messages—it was clear The Newtonite wasn’t just a student publication. It was a fully functioning business. And I had to learn how to run it.

Selling ads taught me about consistency, persistence, and dealing with rejection (a lot of it). It showed me that funding isn’t just about making money—it’s about sustaining something you care about. Every ad we sold meant another issue printed, another student’s voice heard, another story told.

So yeah, I DID NOT land a marketing job as a freshman, but I did help turn The Newtonite into a more financially stable, self-sustaining publication—while learning that sometimes, all it takes is one follow-up call (at the right time) to land the deal.