young journalists

There is plenty of evidence for gloom: the newspaper industry is the fastest-shrinking of them all, and the online ad shares of newspapers have sunk to an all-time low. Hopefully, two studies released this week will help lower your blood pressure; auspicious statistics are a rare commodity these days.

As I’ve written about before, studying journalism may not be such a bad idea. A new study from Georgetown University showed that it’s certainly no worse than studying social science, arts, architecture or law and public policy. Recent graduates with journalism degrees had a 7.7 percent unemployment rate (lower than the aforementioned areas of study), with architecture faring the worst at 13.9 percent. Like any other industry, the unemployment rate in journalism decreased with experience and the attainment of a graduate degree. On average, recent grads can expect $32,000, which increases to $58,000 with experience, and $66,000 after graduate studies. The fields with the lowest unemployment rates were health and education, both at 5.4 percent. 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.
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By now the consensus is that most journalists should “know how to use social media” in their day-to-day jobs.

But what does that really mean?

Here’s a short list of skills that I believe should be part of the basic social media skill set for a journalist today:

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Six ‘new’ journalists – also known as students – have received $20,000 scholarships from a joint initiative between Google and the Associated Press.

As we wrote about last August, the AP-Google Journalism and Technology Scholarship is geared at both undergraduate and graduate students interested in the “intersection of journalism, computer science and new media.” Funded by the AP and Google, it is administered by the Online News Association (ONA).

“There’s nothing more exciting than seeing these new journalist hybrids emerging from our colleges across the U.S.,” Jane McDonnell, ONA Executive Director, said in the press release. “While digital media professionals continue to evolve the game, these students will transform the playing field.”

The recipients range from a sophomore at the University of Minnesota to a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. They each submitted proposals and a team of digital media leaders reviewed the applications and eventually selected the winning six students.

The press release included the students’ proposals. Here they are, in a slightly boiled down version. The full proposals are available on the ONA Press Room.

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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?

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