How did an 18-year-old college student in Maryland gain the trust of and get access to TV executives and anchors in New York? “By posting 10 or 15 posts a day meant that the industry knew it was a reliable consistent source,” says Brian Stelter, creator of our sister site TVNewser and now a media reporter for the New York Times and author of the just released book “Top of the Morning.”

As he neared graduation, Stelter had to make a choice: work in TV news, or cover it.

• Part I: Stelter on Being Matt Lauer’s “nemesis”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Brian Stelter, who launched TVNewser almost 10 years ago, is now a published author. “Top of the Morning,” out today, lays bare a tumultuous year for network morning news shows which saw one anchor pack her bags, another face a serious health issue, a ratings leader fall — and lose a quarter of its audience — and an entirely new show launch.

In his first interview for the book, Stelter tells us about the secrecy behind “Top of the Morning,” the access he got, and what he thinks about being called Matt Lauer‘s nemesis.

• Part II, tomorrow: What happens when Brian Stelter Tweets something he shouldn’t?

For more videos, check out our YouTube channel and follow us on Twitter: @mediabistroTV

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

When the iPad debuted in 2010, Star Trek The Next Generation‘s LeVar Burton wasn’t as surprised by the device as others. After all, characters on his show and the original series were beaming each other up, video chatting and using touch devices way before Apple.

“As a fan of science fiction, I’m not surprised because I recognize that science fiction literature tends to ask us what I believe to be are two of the most powerful words in language in combination: what if,” Burton said in our final Media Beat interview.

“I believe there was some kid who watched those original episodes of Star Trek… That kid grew up, became an engineer, a designer of product, and is responsible for a piece of technology in the flip cell phone that’s more prevalent now than toasters,” he continued. “You look at Bluetooth ear devices, Star Trek. You look at Flip cell phones, Star Trek. Devices, seeing devices for the blind inspired by Geordi‘s visor? Science fiction literature and pop culture really is a main conduit for how we invent our future reality.”

Yeah, Google Glass does look a little like this.

Part 1: LeVar Burton: By not focusing on reading, “We’re sacrificing our kids”
Part 2: LeVar Burton on the Future of Reading Rainbow & Printed Books

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

If everyone loved Reading Rainbow, why in the world was it taken off the air? Politics, says, host LeVar Burton.

“That’s the story that a lot of folks don’t get. No Child Left Behind is doing exactly that, and so the mandate is to teach kids how to read, the rudiments of reading, and there was no money in the budget to foster a love of reading,” he said in our Media Beat interview. “Look, we have spent so much money on the machinery of war in the last 10, 12 years, we are having to make really ridiculous choices. And we’re sacrificing our kids, literally sacrificing our kids.”

So, Burton and his business partner, Mark Wolfe, bought the rights to the name, launched a new company, RRKidz, and created the Reading Rainbow app featuring over 150 books, video field trips and classic clips from the TV show.

“We have value, a product that is of value for families, that is economic and full of the kind of enriching content that the brand, Reading Rainbow, has always been known for,” said Burton.

Part 1: LeVar Burton on the Future of Reading Rainbow & Printed Books
Part 3: LeVar Burton on How Science Fiction Influences Technology

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Who didn’t love Reading Rainbow as a kid?  The iconic 80s show used songs, celebrities and video to actually make literature fun. Well, times they are a changin’, says the show’s onetime host, LeVar Burton.

“Television was the medium and the technology of its time in the 80s and 90s, but you know better than I do that this is the digital-native generation,” he explained in our latest Media Beat interview. “And they consume most of their screen time on mobile devices. That’s where we wanna be. If you want to be where they are, you’ve gotta be on a mobile device.”

Furthermore, Burton said, the days of printed books are also numbered. ”We’re looking at a future, whenever it comes, that we’re gonna consume most of the reading that we do on some kind of electronic device or another. We will still have printed books; they’ll never go away. I think our emotional attachment to them is too strong. What it will do, I believe though, is make the books that we own more valuable to us, more precious.”

(And watch the full interview for a freakin’ awesome homage to that beloved RR theme song.)

Part 2: LeVar Burton: By not focusing on reading, “We’re sacrificing our kids”
Part 3: LeVar Burton on How Science Fiction Influences Technology

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

“Post-racial suggests a world where race does not exist and racism does not exist, and it’s a completely ridiculous term… With post-Blackness, what I’m talking about is a conception of Blackness where the identity options are infinite. So, we’re not saying THIS is what it is to be Black,” he explained in the second installment of our Media Beat interview.

“There seems to be this conception that Blackness must stay in the hood as if Blackness is milk, and the hood is the refrigerator. And the further away you get from the refrigerator, it will spoil. And you go to Yale for four years, somehow you have lost your Blackness, as opposed to if you go to jail for 10 years, your Blackness is hardened?”

In the book, he even asks noted Black academics, celebrities, and activists the best question ever (yes, I said it) about a huge stereotype: “Would you eat watermelon in a room full of white people?”

Watch the full video to find out how ?uestlove of The Roots and Rev. Jesse Jackson answered.

You can also view this video on YouTube.

Part 1: Toure Lights Up the Twittersphere with a Debate on… Tipping?

Part 3: Toure on Pitching, Getting Assignments, and That R. Kelly Interview

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

“The first thing you think about is what are Black women thinking about. What’s important to Black women?” White explains in our latest Media Beat interview. “And that is really the crux of what we do at Essence and, therefore if you’re pitching us, that’s what you should be focused on too as a writer.”

You can also view this video on YouTube.

Part 2: Tuesday, we discuss the real deal behind that fashion director controversy.

Part 3: Wednesday, White explains how she’s growing Essence.com in the face of steep competition from entertainment blogs.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

“Do everything you can to work on these ideas,” Franklin, the man behind Jumping The Broom, explained in our @mediabeat interview. “And I promise you — people think this is crazy — we need good scripts in Hollywood. So, if you write a good script, even if you’re in Nebraska, Ohio — you could be in the most remote part of the world — if you write a good script, I promise you somehow we’ll find it.”

Franklin applied the same principles of diligence and faith in his own life, which he details in his new book Produced By Faith: Enjoy Real Success without Compromising Your True Self (Simon & Schuster).

“The book is a metaphor for your life as a movie, and every movie starts with a big idea,” the author and motivational speaker explained. “My whole big idea for my life is to inspire and encourage, and God has called me to use film as part of a way to do that.”

You can also watch this video on YouTube.

Part 1: Jumping The Broom Production VP Brings Spirituality to Hollywood

Part 3: Columbia Pictures VP Devon Franklin Talks Netflix, Social Media

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

In the overwhelming world of social networks, it’s easy for a publisher, author, or article to get lost in the crowd. The discovery engine StumbleUpon helps millions of readers sort through the mess–generating some impressive traffic in the process.

This week we interviewed StumbleUpon CEO Garrett Camp for mediabistro.com’s Media Beat video show. In the video embedded above, Camp offered some surprising statistics about StumbleUpon’s traffic.

Here’s an excerpt: “We have just under 15 million registered users doing 800 to 850 million Stumbles a month. In terms of traffic, we refer almost as much traffic as Facebook. Which means–if you think about the number of people that click on an external link in a Facebook feed and the amount of people who click on a link in StumbleUpon is about the same in North America.”

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Akashic Books publisher Johnny Temple joined us for a Media Beat interview this week, talking about how he moved from playing in a band to leading a publishing house.

Here’s an excerpt from the interview: “When the bottom fell out of the music business, suddenly record sales plummeted and musicians had to look for multiple income streams to stay afloat. That’s one of the things I learned as a musician–you can’t keep all your eggs in one basket.”

Below we’ve included more interview excerpts with Temple–a publisher and Girls Against Boys bassist. Visit Akashic Books to explore the publisher’s long and varied list.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Akashic Books publisher Johnny Temple joined us for a Media Beat interview this week. In today’s installment, he shared advice for aspiring writers hoping to pitch his literary press.

Here’s an excerpt from the interview: “All of us book publishers these days are inundated with submissions–so many people are writing and there is a great diversity of voices being published. But the flip-side of that is that it is crowded. I think the best way to reach Akashic (or really any publishing company or literary agent for that matter) is to do an end-around–to find someone who we know and trust to recommend you.”

Below we’ve included more interview excerpts with Temple–a publisher and Girls Against Boys bassist. Visit Akashic Books to explore the publisher’s long and varied list.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Akashic Books publisher Johnny Temple joined us for a Media Beat interview this week, talking about how he transitioned from rock star to literary publisher over the last 10 years.

Here’s an excerpt from today’s installment (embedded above): “I had no publishing background, but looking back, I think it gave me a boost … I was unburdened by this morose attitude in book publishing, [thinking] ‘Nobody reads books anymore, our business is in decline’–all these doom and gloom attitudes. Unfortunately, I’ve never had that.”

Below we’ve included more interview excerpts with Temple–a publisher and Girls Against Boys bassist. Visit Akashic Books to explore the publisher’s long and varied list.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Novelist James Ellroy joined us for a Media Beat interview this week, talking about his recent memoir (The Hilliker Curse) and outlining his upcoming six-part television series.

Here’s an excerpt from today’s installment (embedded above): “I had a blast as a kid writer … Nobody told me I couldn’t write a novel first crack. Nobody discouraged or encouraged me. I had no family. I had good, clean outdoor work. I caddied at country clubs …  I got sober preceding this. So I was clearheaded, healthy, and very, very ambitious. It took me six published novels to tenuously earn a living as a writer. But I don’t view it as a struggle.”

James Ellroy’s LA: City of Demons premieres on Wednesday, January 19th at 10 p.m. on Investigation Discovery. Follow these links to watch the rest  of the Media Beat interview:

Part One–James Ellroy On His New TV Show
Part Two: James Ellroy on Los Angeles

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

In our Media Beat interview, he revealed how he added another title to his resume:  screenwriter and executive producer of HBO’s Bored to Death, a series based on his own short story about a writer turned private investigator.

“I read a number of scripts and I just quickly gleaned that you want to make the descriptions short and to the point and the dialogue lively,” Ames told mediabistro.com founder Laurel Touby. “I did learn as I went along to begin scenes late and end early. You don’t want people walking across the room a lot and ringing doorbells. You know, all that’s gonna chew up screen time and get thrown out anyway. It was just sort of adapting to a form, like adapting to a poetic form like a sonnet. What’s another one? A siesta. No, that’s a nap.”

Watch the full video for more tips (and humor) about Ames’ writing process and to find out why, despite his success, he’s still not ready to settle down.

Part 1: Bored to Death‘s Jonathan Ames on Sex, Insecurity and…Boxing?

Part 3: Jonathan Ames Brings “Jonathan Ames” to HBO’s Bored to Death

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

So, what’s the one piece of advice she’d give to those looking to emulate her success?

“I tell a lot of young writers that they should be more concerned about their stories and characters than being famous and even getting published, because when they’re ready they will be published,” she said in the final installment of our Media Beat interview. “Too many of them now all they think about is how much money they’re gonna make, being famous, getting on The New York Times, that’s their goal. And that’s such a phony, superficial, shallow goal to have as a reason for writing.”

Watch the full video to get more of McMillan’s insights on the screenwriting process and to find out why she’s not a Kindle fan.

Part 1: Terry McMillan: From Waiting To Exhale To Getting To Happy

Part 2: Terry McMillan Puts the ‘Ugliness’ of Divorce Behind Her

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.