Open question: Is an academic degree to the employers at the small daily papers as important?

I „any university “had (I majored in English for three years, before I eliminated time), and I have one year of the experience as freelance writers with a small daily paper, as well as experience letter of a yearly with a local magazine. I applied to some small daily papers and even some weekly papers, and despite my experience, I had no luck at a job offer. I think that my experience and training are not proven by the letter samples, which I submit thus I no other reason me present can her to me an interview would even offer. Do you think it are, because I did not lock my degree? I white, university for prestigeful journalism careers is important, but I did not realise that it was nascently so importantly for small circulation papers…