What is the best way to land a job in journalism?

I graduated with my BA in Journalism from The University of Alabama in August of 2008. I've been spinning my wheels in Mobile, Alabama, waiting for something to open up at our local paper or one of several local magazines. Almost a year and a half later, I am still waiting tables. I don't care where I have to move (though i would prefer chicago, boston, orlando, miami, or atlanta) or where I work. I just want to start doing what I paid a goodly amount of money to do, which is observe, analyze and write.

I wasn't able to work on my school newspaper because I worked 50 hours a week at the restaurant. Does anyone have any advice on how to move forward with my life, because I am getting really tired of slinging wings.What is the best way to land a job in journalism?
I hate to tell you this, but print journalism is going through a very bad patch that won't be sorted out for at least 10 years and maybe more. The Seattle Intelligencer is now online only; The Detroit Free Press no longer delivers; The Denver Post is no more; You can't find a copy of the New Orleans Times-Picayune in Baton Rouge, the state capital; The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has been reduced to the size, format, and content of a student newspaper; The Indianapolis Star is a raggy shadow of itself; The Chicago Tribune is selling off assets like the Cubs to stave off bankruptcy; and The Los Angeles Times is cutting its work force, mostly news people, by 25%. The best newspaper between Washington and Miami is the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk. The last few jobs for reporters are with indie online news services, and they're "by the word" freelance. Sad world--and it will take years for the public to realize that online blurbs and sound bites are no substitute for hard news and investigative reporting. And by then it might be too late--my college students won't even pick up a FREE copy of the newspaper in their dorm lobby, much less read it. And even if they did, the average American's comprehension level is dismal. I have seniors who can't interpret a traffic ticket, don't know what the three branches of our government are, can't balance a checkbook, and think that either Eisenhower or MacArthur commanded the American troops at Yorktown. Sweet suffering Jesus.



My daughter saw this coming, switched to broadcast communications, and is now fund-raising director and a producer for an NPR radio station. But she needed two Master's degrees to bag that one. Print isn't going to really die entirely, but it probably won't get very far off life support for the next 25 years, and by then you'll be facing age discrimination without any record of journalistic experience. And, to be brutally honest, a Journ. degree from Alabama is gonna be up against graduates of Columbia, Northwestern and Missouri; a job search will be like swimming through wet sand. I ran into the same thing in Academe 40 years ago, and now that the older generation is finally retiring, so have I--and then the economy collapsed. Time to find something else and move on, or you'll be in WingLand forever.What is the best way to land a job in journalism?
big cities like manhattan, boston, sf or la. mostly ny tho