PaidContent’s Rafat Ali Talks Entrepreneurial Journalism

PaidContent founder Rafat Ali talked shop with journalism grad students at USC Annenberg’s Journalism Director’s Forum.

He says he graduated from J-school and nobody wanted to give him a job, so he started blogging “to raise my own profile, an interactive resume.” Then the site, which covers the business behind online media (and which we read religiously), took off.

His advice for J-students: “Try to get some experience in editing. Because editing is one of the first functions to go. If you edit each other’s stories, you’ll get some experience in that.”

Warning: The sound quality is iffy, so you’ll need some patience for this hour-long clip. (We skipped the first five minutes of intro for you, to save you some precious time. You’re welcome.)

Join Baratunde Thurston (left), The Onion’s Director of Digital and author of How to Be Black, for an entertaining look at creative social media campaigns in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting this Thursday, February 16. Other speakers include Morin Oluwole (Facebook), Michael Brito (Edelman Digital), and Tim Devane (bitly). Register now.