Browse 10,000 Words January 2012 archives - 10,000 Words

Tackle The Web With True-Life Tales

Ji Hyun Park — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:36:10 +0000

Who says your first-person essays have to be limited to print? We’re ending our four-part series on personal essays with a nod to the growing digital outlet, with 15 sites all eager to publish your piece.

Salon.com is hungry for unique stories only you can tell, while three parenting pubs want to read “click-y content” that’ll bring the laughs. You can even tweet “tiny truths” to CreativeNonfiction.org in 130 characters or less.

Find out more on word count and submission etiquette at Personal Essay Markets, Part IV [sub req'd]. And don’t forget to revisit our Parts I, II and III for advice on tackling the oldie-but-goodie print pubs.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Sh*t Meme Lands On Journalists

Ji Hyun Park — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:03:44 +0000

We knew it was only a matter of time until this meme turned the spotlight on journalists. [h/t Stuff Journalists Like]

Bonus: TVSpy discovered “Sh*t News Reporters Say.” Compare and contrast.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

With iBooks 2 And iBooks Author, E-Book Publishing For The Masses

Ethan Klapper — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:32:02 +0000

E-Books that originate in newsrooms are an increasingly common phenomenon. The Washington Post and POLITICO, to name two publishers, have both gotten into that business lately, and have had success with porting their work to the longform platform.

Apple’s recent introduction of iBooks 2 and iBooks Author brings the ability for much smaller newsrooms with limited budgets to create and sell e-books for iOS devices. And these are not just any e-books: these are interactive e-books that gives you the ability to embed videos, photo galleries, quizzes and interactive images. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

International Data Journalism Awards debut

Meranda Watling — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:00:05 +0000

There’s no dearth of ways for journalists to congratulate and recognize themselves with awards. Whether you’re a small local newspaper or the most-watched national news show, there exists a seemingly endless list of contests and prizes to celebrate everything from the best public service journalism (Pulitzer anyone?) down to the most-specific specialized reporting (Media Orthopaedic Reporting Excellence Awards?). But within that sphere of contest categories, there’s not really been a contest solely focused on data journalism.

Now there is: The Data Journalism Awards, which purports to be “the first international contest recognizing outstanding work in the field of data journalism worldwide.”

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

10 Must-Haves For Your Mobile Reporting Kit

Elana Zak — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:46:16 +0000

With today’s technology, it’s becoming abundantly clear that every reporter should have a mobile reporting kit stashed in his or her car or bag. But what do you put in it?

This past weekend, Columbia School of Journalism hosted its second annual Social Media Weekend. While there, Anjali Mullany, New York Daily News‘s social media editor, filmed this excellent video interview with MSNBC’s Meg Robertson. In it, Robertson details what she has in her mobile reporting kit.

I thought it would be a good idea to revisit some of these must-haves Robertson mentions. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The Personal Stories Editors Want to Publish

Ji Hyun Park — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:42:03 +0000

After talking with at least 60 editors for our four-part series on pitching personal essays, we’ve learned a lot about what they expect in a publishable story.

Paula Derrow from Self wants fresh and relatable while Whole Life Times’ Abigail Lewis puts extra emphasis on humor and a tie into their L.A. home. And for Shape, editor A.J. Hanley says it’s all about tone, tone, tone.

Our latest installment adds 15 more magazines that are gunning for a first-person narrative. Find out what these editors and others crave in the pitch in Personal Essay Markets, Part III. [sub req'd]

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

What The Facebook Subscriber Feature Means For Content Curation

Ben LaMothe — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:18:52 +0000

So you’re a journalist who turned on the subscribe feature on your personal Facebook page and now you’ve got a good number of Subscribers.

Now what?

Previously, it was possible to divide your social media life into two realms: Personal (Facebook) and Business (Twitter). You might have used Twitter to push out links and do some reporting, while your Facebook page was more for friends and family.

Now that you have a bunch of Subscribers, who subscribe to your updates because they expect information and content relative to your job, you can’t divide the two streams like you once did.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The Guardian Launches Second Phase of Open News Trial

Elana Zak — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 05:09:58 +0000

UK’s The Guardian is expanding its open journalism experiment with a new live blog that, according to one editor, aims to “bring readers into the heart of our news editing operation.”

Newsdesk Live launched today and will not only incorporate the news organization’s newslist of daily stories but also a comment thread, writes national news editor Dan Roberts. This new feature allows “readers to discuss what’s going on directly rather than having to do so via Twitter,” Roberts explains. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The New York Times Releases New Tool For Collaborative Editing

Lauren Rabaino — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:52:59 +0000

As more news organizations move toward web content systems that were originally intended for single-person bloggers, the need for a more dynamic tool has becoming increasingly apparent. The New York Times recognizes this and has launched some code that could help. Called ICE (“Integrated Content Editor”), the tool lets collaborators of a web-based text document track changes from multiple users.

In the demo, you can select different users from a dropdown to see their various contributions and deletions in the document. You can toggle between showing/hiding changes.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Make Your Voice Count At New York Mag

Ji Hyun Park — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:45:32 +0000

Breaking into the literary dream that is New York magazine means you’ve got to offer something new, an interesting angle or exclusive access into a little-known subcultural scene in the city (or anywhere else in the world).

“A freelance pitch that provides unusual insight and access into a slightly more hidden world or scene has a better chance of becoming a story here,” said editorial director Jared Hohlt in How To Pitch: New York [sub req'd]. “Features that trend to get approved are narrative-focused and designed to engage the reader in good old fashioned storytelling.”

David Haskell, the magazine’s feature editor, agrees — but he needs more than just a good anecdote.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Social Media & Online Community Posts From Around The Web

Ben LaMothe — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:34:29 +0000

Every Friday I post links to a few of the blog posts that I read during the week that I found interesting and insightful.

Included in this week’s round-up is discussion about how to build a social media command center; why Facebook isn’t an echo chamber; and best practice for a community manager planning a week of activity and content.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Facebook Asks Reporters to Sign Non-Disclosure Agreement

Elana Zak — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:14:21 +0000

Reporters going into a news conference at Facebook’s offices in Seattle were asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement, according to reports coming from news outlets in Seattle.

The Seattle Times blogged earlier today that reporters going to the news conference received an email from Dan Sytman, a spokesman for the Washington Attorney General’s office. Attached was the non-disclosure agreement from Facebook. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Focus on the African American Perspective

Ji Hyun Park — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:13:59 +0000

Filmmakers and freelancers with a great story on Black America can discover a byline waiting for them at The Grio.

According to managing editor Joy-Ann Reid, every section of the site is hungry for underreported stories. From great stories with strong characters to photo-driven stories from a unique Black perspective, or even a profile with a big celeb can land you in the site. And Reid suggests adding multimedia to the mix, as the site relies heavily on original video content.

To find out which sections the editors are especially looking to beef up content, read How to Pitch: The Grio. [sub req'd]

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Why is Media Criticism Dominated by White Men?

Mona Zhang — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:05:10 +0000

Yesterday, D.C.-based journalist Shani Hilton wondered in the Washington City Paper: “Where are the women and non-white media critics?” Her quick brainstorm of those who’ve achieved prominence included The Daily Beast’s Howard Kurtz, NYU’s Jay Rosen, Reuter’s Jack Shafer, and The New York Times’ David Carr. They all seem to confirm that media criticism is a white-male dominated world.

In it, she quotes Andrew Beaujon, “the new Romensko,” whose theory is that media criticism “is fundamentally an alt-weekly pursuit, and alt-weeklies’ DNA is heavily white and male.” His working theory about the white and male alt-weekly is that “working at such places gives white males such as myself a chance to feel like an underdog for once in our lives.”

Certainly, alt-weeklies are predominately white and male, as is journalism itself—but that fails to take into consideration other venues of media criticism. One may think of The Atlantic’s Megan Garber or FAIR’s Janine Jackson. A commenter pointed out the work of Michele McLellan and Amy Gahran at the Knight Digital Media Center. Nonetheless, is the shortage of women and minorities in media criticism really a cause for wonder? continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Apply Today for the Stone & Holt Weeks Fellowship

Maurice Cherry — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 09:56:49 +0000

Do good. Have fun. And make the world a better place for all.

This is the credo of the Stone & Holt Weeks Foundation, which is named after two young young men who were victims of a tragic car accident in the summer of 2009. It was established by Linton Weeks, national correspondent for Digital News at NPR and a former reporter for The Washington Post, and Jan Taylor Weeks, an artist, teacher, and volunteer. The Foundation has held a number of events since it was founded in 2009, and they recently announced their call for applications for the Stone & Holt Weeks Fellowship, a six-month opportunity for an up-and-coming journalist to learn the skills of the trade before jump-starting a successful career in journalism.

The Stone & Holt Weeks Foundation awards one fellow a year, and gives them exposure to journalism in a broad, connected sense with two of the nation’s most prestigious news organizations. The awarded fellow will receive one-on-one mentoring from professional journalists at The Washington Post and NPR, as well as several training sessions in key areas of journalism like radio and digital production. This also includes coverage on the air, online, and in the field.

The fellowship consists of two parts: 12 weeks at The Washington Post and 12 weeks at NPR. The fellow will also receive a weekly stipend of $800 for the duration of the fellowship, but they will be responsible for any living expenses. Employment with either The Washington Post or NPR is not guaranteed after the fellowship. The Stone & Holt Weeks Foundation has confirmed two fellows in previous years: Nathan Rott in 2010 and Teresa Tomassoni in 2011.

To apply for the Stone & Holt Weeks Fellowship, visit http://www.npr.org/about/careers/fellowships/weeks.html and download and complete the application form. Applicants do not need to have journalism degrees or experience as a journalist, but you must have a bachelor’s degree (or have received one by July 15, 2012). You must also include two recommendations, two or more writing samples, a resume, and a copy of your academic transcripts.

All documents, including the application form, must be postmarked by midnight on April, 30, 2012.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.