Jobs

In case you missed the news, being a reporter is the fifth worst job of 2012, according to a CareerCast.com survey.

That’s right. Being a taxi driver, a maid, a dishwasher, or a janitor all ranked higher than being a newspaper reporter. (Here’s the full list, as published on The Wall Street Journal website.)

Now, over on The New York Times‘ Media Decoder blog, David Carr is fighting back. Well, sort of. He’s at least giving reporters a chance to voice their opinion.  Read more

Author and journalist Susan Orlean (left) has written two nonfiction pieces that have been turned into films. She’ll discuss her new book, Rin Tin Tin, in Mediabistro’s first online Literary Festival & Workshops starting July 16. Other speakers include Rebecca Skloot, Jason Boog, and Jason Allen Ashlock. Register now.

When I started blogging about journalism, I did so at the urging of a hiring editor (who didn’t, ultimately, hire me but did inspire me). I had all these great digital skills, she told me, but she asked why had I presented her with carbon-based clips (i.e. paper) instead of a URL. I left the job fair and put the years of web design experience I’d been amassing to good work, and by the end of the weekend had built myself a website with clips, a resume, a bio and a blog about, what else, journalism and my place in the evolving industry.

That was a few months before my college graduation. And after putting so much work into the blog, I proudly stamped the URL on my resume and included it in my cover letters to prospective employers. To be honest, the blog’s inclusion wasn’t so much a way to show off my work as to cover my ass. When I interviewed for jobs, I discussed it. When I was hired, I searched the employee handbook and intranet for information about personal blogs. Soon after I arrived, I sat down with the executive editor and we discussed it. See, what kept me up late at night wasn’t the prospect of graduating without a job, but rather I did not want one of those editors to plug my name in Google and come across my blog, assuming I had hid or was hiding it.

I had flashbacks to that period and those decisions when I heard the story of Khristopher Brooks, who was fired this week from the job he hadn’t yet started because of the way he announced his new job on his tumblr blog. Brooks did a silly thing, but in my opinion, the folks he thought would soon be his new bosses did an even sillier one. (In my honest opinion, I think they come off looking out-of-touch and overly cautious for a news organization currently force-feeding its employees the “digital first!” company line, and he comes off probably having dodged a bullet.)

Here’s what got Brooks fired, and then, here’s my been-there-done-that advice on how to not get fired for your personal journalism blog.
Read more

In my last two posts here, I drew from experiences I had as a guest speaker to journalism, mass media and public relations classes at Central Michigan University.

This post will touch again on those experiences, but will look at a common question I was asked by students in many of the classes I spoke to.

In every class I spoke to, there was one student who always asked the same question: How can I get a job in social media?

Read more

Much is being said lately about the impact that social media is having on how business is done both in this country and worldwide.

As social media has become more integrated into how businesses promote themselves, buy advertise, market at various levels, it has caused a seismic shift in what platforms get priority over others.

This seismic shift has created a ripple effect in the way that marketing, public relations, communications and journalism is taught by colleges in the U.S.

Many universities are faced with two options: integrate social media into their current curriculum, or teach it separately as a specialism, with a certificate or even a separate major.

Read more

Although the entertainment and gossip site Young, Black and Fabulous is reeling in 15 million hits a month, it had its humble start as a simple site on Blogger.

Back in 2005, Natasha Eubanks noticed major online outlets weren’t discussing African-American celebrities, so the former law student decided to take matters into her own hands and launch her own site.

“I didn’t make a penny off of anything because I didn’t have any readers. I didn’t see any money until two years, and I only saw a few dollars even then,” the blogstress said in mediabistro.com’s So What Do You Do?. ”But I saw [Google AdSense], and I think that kind of sparked it in me. I was like, wait a minute. There’s an ad platform? What does that mean? You can make money just by writing what you think? That’s insanity.”

For more on how The YBF became the go-t0 source for Black Hollywood gossip, and Eubank’s personal advice for aspiring bloggers, read the full interview here.