The mag’s website covers the same nature-friendly topics as the print mag, and editors are open to hearing from freelancers who want to write Web content and establish a relationship with the pub. In particular, they would love to receive more multimedia pitches, like videos, slideshows and audio pieces. 

For more info, read How To Pitch: Audubon.

The full version of this article is exclusively available to Mediabistro AvantGuild subscribers. If you’re not a member yet, register now for as little as $55 a year for access to hundreds of articles like this one, discounts on Mediabistro seminars and workshops, and all sorts of other bonuses.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The full version of this article is exclusively available to Mediabistro AvantGuild subscribers. If you’re not a member yet, register now for as little as $55 a year for access to hundreds of articles like this one, discounts on Mediabistro seminars and workshops, and all sorts of other bonuses.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Whether you live in the comments or try to avoid them like the plague, there’s a lot of value to understanding just how a community begins discussion and what makes an article ripe for trending. Ubiquitous comment system Disqus has made the discovery of trending topics visual with its new website, Gravity. The dynamic, HTML5-based website reports in real time where articles are receiving comment traffic by tracking motion across all of Disqus’s publication partners.

“What you’re seeing isn’t a simple directory of content people are clicking on,” the company writes in Gravity’s about page. “You’re seeing discussions experiencing a spike in volume. You’re seeing what people are talking about.” continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

 1) Mobile Layouts 

I know that everyone keeps saying that mobile is the future, and it is, of course. Fine. But I still don’t know how I’m supposed to work on a tablet. The old Gawker layout was optimized for a desktop experience, with the main blog post and a scroll down menu of new and trending posts. You could pick and choose, hop around the site before getting back to whatever you were avoiding before you came to Gawker in the first place.

The new Kinja layout is clean, sleek and modern. Everything you want a digital experience to be — except that you have to scroll around too much. I find myself reading many of the blurbs without actually clicking on a story. And when you do click into a story, that’s it. You have to work to browse. 

On a tablet, the Kinja reading experience makes more sense. Video and ads and posts all come together in one, non-annoying, continuous roll. My reaction to reading the new Gawker on my laptop is the first time I ever felt old. And why can’t you Tweet single posts? What’s the deal, Denton?   continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

After founding Sassy and Jane,

“It still amazes me that a lot of women’s magazines in particular will use this magazine speak, this terminology.” Pratt told Mediabistro in the latest installment of So What Do You Do?. “Like, instead of saying ‘your hair,’ they’ll say ‘your mane’ or ‘your tresses.’ And I always feel like if someone says ‘your lackluster tresses’ instead of ‘your dirty hair,’ you feel like they’re not telling you the whole truth. I feel like that makes you as a reader say, ‘Well, if they’re lying to me about that, what else are they lying to me about?’

For more, read So What Do You Do, Jane Pratt, Editor-in-Chief of xojane.com?

– Nicholas Braun

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

It used to be that freelance meant you were a free-agent. Now, it just means you work for free, or scraps.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

It’s a sticky subject, for sure, and the centerpiece of a Social Media Week debate in Buzzfeed’s Flatiron District office between Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith and conservative blogger and The Dist Andrew Sullivan. To describe the debate as a blood bath is even a little bit of an understatement, as the two personalities clashed vehemently over the advertorial’s place online — and the effect it has on journalism at large. Here’s a quote from the debate moderator, the Atlantic‘s Derek Thompson, from his write-up of the event: continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

In the latest installment of Mediabistro’s So What Do You Do? series, Schreiber says that aspiring entrepreneurs should “be willing to put in the work for a long period of time for just the love of it.”

“Today, more so than any other time, it seems really difficult to make a living in the media, especially in the music media,” he explained. “It’s just so crowded, and at this point the publications that are really able to establish themselves are the ones that are the most passionate and the most relatable. I find that the publications I tend to connect with most are ones that are, in many cases, written by a single voice, somebody who has a really interesting viewpoint or perspective.”

Read the full interview in So What Do You Do, Ryan Schreiber, Founder and CEO of Pitchfork?

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Yes, the world of conservative political news media has mastered the paywall. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

That happened today when NPR’s Andy Carvin —  a senior strategist and reporter whose work on the Arab Spring, primarily through his Twitter account @acarvin, led the Washington Post to call him a “one-man Twitter news Bureau” — dispensed helpful advice about digital journalism and production on stories that occur thousands of miles away. His hour-long AMA gave great insights into his own reporting style, and the toll of covering the Arab Spring.

Here’s a roundup of some of the highlights.

On Authenticating Video

The most import thing to do is look for context. Is there something visible in the background that can be IDed, like a building or other landmark? If people are speaking, what kind of accents do they have? If there are weapons involved, what kinds are they? Does the timestamp of the video match the weather forecast, or the location of the sun and shadows? Etc, etc. Fortunately, I have a lot of Twitter followers who love this type of detective work. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

It’s important to note that this isn’t the work of standard viral websites like Fark or Buzzfeed. Instead, there’s a new generation of thoughtful, news-focused startups that are finding new ways to share important news content without reducing it to a sugary mass of fluff. One of the biggest viral news websites today is Upworthy, which focuses on creating viral posts of serious content including political speeches, think tank concepts and research data. Since its start in March of 2012, Upworthy has earned millions in funding and gained the monniker of the fastest growing media company in the world.

Here are three ways Upworthy and similar website NowThisNews are on their way to changing news at large. What do you think of their efforts? Let us know in the comments.

1. Relevant Topics Are Perfectly Boiled Down

Instead of an in-depth report on Lance Armstrong’s controversial interview with Oprah, a video on NowThisNews’ front page boiled the whole interview down to a mere 160 seconds. It’s the perfect example of the goal of viral news organizations: to condense big news topics and other points of interest into digestible and shareable bits of information. Users can click on before their commute (or before their lunch break) and easily get through the day’s news in half an hour — and share all of it to their friends. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

“The best way to get in the magazine as a freelancer is to pitch a great Texas story, to know the subject matter, and to have a keen sense of what most Texas Monthly stories are like,” says editor Jake Silverstein. “Reading the magazine closely and demonstrating an understanding of its tone and sensibility are key.”

Freelancers can also break into the website, which has ramped up content in the past year. One-off stories, column ideas and multimedia (with a written story) are all game.

For more information, read How To Pitch: Texas Monthly. [Mediabistro AvantGuild subscription required]

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Instagram has become an unlikely, yet important, online tool for journalists, bloggers and citizens. Not only is it a great way to shoot stylized photos and on-the-go location shots, but it’s also a smart outlet to turn to when looking for eyewitness accounts of major news — people often turn to Instagram thanks to its quick sharing with social media networks like Twitter and Facebook.

However, these past few weeks have changed the service in a radical way, and now is the time to determine whether it’s the right tool for your photos and your personal use.

1. You Won’t See it On Twitter

This season has been a rocky one for Instagram and one of its biggest propagators, Twitter. Two weeks ago, the companies had effectively “broken up,” with Instagram no longer hosting images through Twitter’s API. Twitter snapped back, effectively distributing its own Instagram clone (with filters to boot) right in its native TwitPic system. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

This came to mind when GigaOm founder Om Malik posted this tweet praising TechCrunch for “do[ing] the right thing” and crediting them for their “scoop” regarding Google’s acquisition of BufferBox.

The comments on his tweet are particularly interesting, with comments ranging from “I didn’t know you guys had anything on it” to “How is it a GigaOm scoop when they announced it in a company blog post?” to the toungue-in-cheek “Google may acquire a startup in the next six months. You heard it here first. Please make sure to source me. Thanks.” As background, Om apparently had a post about Amazon Locker/BufferBox last month that mentioned, “I have heard rumors that Google is interested in buying the company,” and speculates on what BufferBox could add to the search giant’s line up. TechCrunch updated its post on the sale, which cites the Financial Post interview with the founder, to include a link to Om’s story as background.

But here’s the thing: Are rumors scoops? When does a scoop cease being a scoop, when the info is public and everyone else reports it? Even when it’s not a scoop, but a publicized feature/event/purchase/etc…. Who do you credit? When do you have to credit them? How do you credit them?

With that in mind, here are some best practices to help deliver credit where it’s due and, because it’s about the readers, give your visitors more background into the story and topic. What it comes down to is, it’s better to give too much credit than not enough. Hopefully these tips help navigate the sometimes murky link-back. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

In fact, Hoy admits that what he’s really looking for is a single person to contribute every form of digital media, including social. Because the Triathlete.com staff is lean, they depend on contributors for nearly 35 percent of the site’s content each month. So pitching a multimedia package is sure to woo editors there.

For more information, read How To Pitch: Triathlete. [subscription required]

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.