As journalists, we are used to asking hard-hitting questions and writing up engaging prose. But, in the age of technology and the Internet, we need to know a few more tools in order to stay relevant and appeal to tech-savvy audiences. Simply tweeting or putting a collage on Pinterest isn’t enough — reporters must also leverage those technologies to stay ahead of the curve.

“[Journalists] are increasingly being required to take away from time doing actual reporting to do a million other things like community building… promoting their stories… and so they will be required to engage in some of that stuff,” said Menachem Wecker, a Virginia-based education reporter at U.S. News & World Report.

So, whether you’re looking for a new gig or just trying to keep your existing one, here are a handful of skills you absolutely, positively, without a doubt should have in your arsenal (and on your resume). Feel free to add your own in the comments section.

1. Social Media Management

By now, everyone knows that Twitter allows 140 characters per post, but how long should your tweet really be? Considering that a retweet from your readers will include the original post and your handle, the shorter, the better.

“If you want to share a link, shorten it first,” writes AllTwitter’s Shea Bennett in his post, “10 Must-Learn Lessons for Twitter Newbies.” “Use bit.ly (or Twitter’s internal shortener) to shorten long links into 20 characters. This gives you 100 characters of free space to talk about what’s inside that link.”

Once you’ve written the perfect post, monitor how well it does through platforms like Chartbeat and Google Analytics. Find out how many shares you’re getting through Facebook posts or whether Twitter fans are actually reading your stories or just retweeting them. Then, take it a step further and promote your stories during the times of day when your audience is the largest. Tweetdeck will let you “future post” updates, as will other apps like Twuffer or twitmessenger.

Now that social media is no longer just a fad, your goal should be to familiarize yourself with any and all platforms that will bolster the efficacy of your accounts.

“[Journalists] are increasingly being required to take away from time doing actual reporting to do a million other things.”

2. Photo Editing

With the popularity of visuals online (Pinterest, slideshows) and in mobile (Instagram, anyone?), knowing how to create and modify art for your stories means getting your stories out faster and, possibly, wider.

“It’s unfortunate that many publications are expecting their reporters and freelancers to___take on the role of photographer and photo editor, but that’s the reality,” said Wecker.

Although freelancers may find Photoshop a costly investment, it’s not the only program out there. You can grasp some photo-editing basics with Google’s Picasa and Adobe Photoshop Express, which is perfect for when you need to post a photo on location. Whatever graphics program you use, you’ll want to learn how to do things like crop, resize and reduce red eye.

Let’s not forget infographics. A good one can be page view heaven online, and if you can use Photoshop or Illustrator skills to brand it with your news org’s logo, it could bring even more people back to your site.

3. Basic HTML

Once you’ve mastered a user-friendly blog platform like WordPress, you may think that having basic HTML skills is unnecessary, but that’s not completely true. (Raise your hand if you’ve published something only to see that the finished product is in all italic or bold font or that your bulleted list came out as something else entirely.)

NEXT >> 4 Lessons for Writing in the Digital Age

“So much on the Web is ready-made plug and play and that’s fantastic, but you as a professional want to have the skillset to make it look seamless,” explained Meg Heckman, former online editor at the Concord Monitor.

There are a million things in a story’s code that can screw it up online, but you can only catch errors if you know what to look for. All those italics are probably due to an open < i >< / i > tag and the bulleted list gone bad is probably because your < ul >< / ul > is off. Check out Lynda for tutorials or browse these basic HTML tips.

Firefox’s Firebug or Google Analytics Debugger let you view, edit, debug, and monitor webpage code. Add those extensions to your browser and you can see the HTML behind any website. So, if you like another story’s format, you can duplicate it for your own.

4. Search Engine Optimization

Sometimes, maximizing page views is all about having the right words and phrases in your story, and Google AdWords reigns supreme for generating the best keywords.

“You enter the crux of what your story is about, search for a related keyword that has high search results and fairly low competition, then make that your keyword and ensure it’s in your title, URL, header and content,” explained Bret Love, a journalist from Atlanta who runs Green Global Travel.

Bloggers who want to optimize posts as they write can install an SEO plug-in such as Yoast, Love said. “It’s basically like an idiot’s guide to SEO, giving you a green light when it’s good, yellow light when it’s OK, and a red light if your SEO stinks,” he said. It also tells you where a term is lacking, so you can easily fix it. However, he advises journalists to write as they would and not get too caught up in using too many keywords like a “marketing nut.”

“Diversification is key to surviving the changing tides in our industry.”

Heckman notes that most newsrooms have content management systems, which can help reporters determine keywords to use as they type. Content doesn’t matter as much as what’s on top of it. “For the vast majority of reporters and even your average editor, a strong Web-appropriate headline is what really matters,” she said.

5. Audio and Video Editing

In today’s digital era, being able to record and edit interviews can set you apart from the rest.

Journalists can edit audio easily with Garage Band or Audacity. If you browse online, you’re bound to find some useful tutorials (like this one, for Audacity) that can aid you in using the software.

Web videos can be just as powerful. Erica Sandberg, a personal finance expert and editor-at-large for BankRate.com’s Credit Card Guide promotes her articles with short videos. She recently started putting together clips for MySourceTV as part of her show, “Making It with Erica.”

“To me, as far as journalists and reporters spreading their stories around the globe, a short video is the way to go,” Sandberg said.

Although Sandberg plans to hire an inexpensive production company to make more videos, DIY solutions include Final Cut Pro, iMovie and Windows Movie Maker. iPromptPro or i-Prompter are other neat tools that let you turn your smartphone into a teleprompter.

More Skills, More Opportunities

Whether you try out another social networking tool or learn how to operate new software, it’s important to push yourself as the industry moves forward.

“In my experience, diversification is key to surviving the changing tides in our industry,” said Love, who has done everything from graphic design and social media consulting when writing was slow. “The more tools you have in your box, the more valuable you become as an asset.”

NEXT >> 4 Lessons for Writing in the Digital Age

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Kristen Fischer is a copywriter and Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW) living at the Jersey Shore. Visit her at www.kristenfischer.com.

An estimated 80 percent of Americans want to write a book someday, and it’s very likely that most of those people have been silently crafting their stories for years, mentally stringing together character sketches and plot lines. But what if your dream is to tell someone else‘s story, to write a book that brings to life the imagination or experiences of another person?

Author David Ritz has been doing just that for over 35 years, collaborating with more than a few high-profile celebs, like R&B artist R. Kelly and Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry. He even played a part in the creation of Marvin Gaye’s iconic hit “Sexual Healing” while working on Gaye’s biography, Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye, published in 1985. At age 68, Ritz is easily one of the most prolific writers in the publishing industry — ghost or otherwise — and he shows no signs of slowing down.

I read in the L.A. Times profile of you that you taught a class in contemporary R&B. How did you segue into ghostwriting for artists?
In graduate school, I was working on my Master’s and my PhD in English, and I taught a course using the lyrics of R&B songs and had students examine them as poetry. For a while, I was going to be an academic and a scholar, but it just wasn’t me. I wanted to meet the people who make music, and it was really important to me to get in that life. I wanted to know who are they, and how do they think, and where do they come from? And what’s it like to actually hang out with them and talk to them?

When I first met Ray Charles, I didn’t know about ghostwriting; I was just going to do a biography of him. And then his agent asked me, “Which book would you be more interested in reading: a book about Ray Charles written by an egghead, or a book written in his own voice?” I told him that I would much rather read the book written in his own voice, and he told me, “You should write the book you would want to read, not the one you believe you should write.” And that was a big turning point for me.

“You should write the book you would want to read, not the one you believe you should write.”

So, how do your collaborations typically come about now? Are people seeking you out?
There are times now when people do [seek me out], but I’m really a hustler — in a good way. I get out there and chase down people. I initially got Ray Charles 35 years ago by sending a telegram to him in Braille, because his manager wouldn’t let me see him. So I’m real determined. And Aretha [Franklin], I chased after her for 25 years before she agreed to a book. And now I want to do a book with Keyshia [Cole], so I’ll pursue her.

I would say that the first 25 to 30 years of my career I did all my own hustling. I’m like The Temptations: I ain’t too proud to beg. So I call people and tell them, “Hey, I’m a writer for hire; hire me because I love you and I want to tell your story, and I want to get to know you.” You do get a lot of rejections — and I’ve probably gotten as much rejection as anybody in the world — but you just develop a thick skin. You don’t take it personally, and you realize it’s part of the job. I like to sell, and I like to meet people and try to talk them into using me as their writer. I enjoy that.

I noticed that some of your recent books say “with David Ritz” as opposed to just having the celebrity’s name. Was that your decision?
Yeah, I mean, I kinda feel like there are two kinds of ghosts. One is the kind of ghost where you get your name on the cover with ‘with’ or ‘and’ or ‘as told to’ and your name is not as big as the star’s. And the other kind is where your name is nowhere on the book, even though you’ve written it. And I don’t like that, even though that makes the truest ghost. I still have enough of an ego that I just want to see my name, or else you wouldn’t have heard of me, and we wouldn’t even be having this talk. It doesn’t have to be large, and I don’t have to have my picture with the star’s in the back. But I do want at least acknowledgement of my participation. Most people don’t have an objection because they realize how important my participation is.

NEXT >> Under Pressure: Nailing The Celebrity Interview

Have you ever turned down the opportunity to ghost someone’s book?
Sure. I mean, if I don’t like the person, or I don’t respect them, I can’t do it. It’s a million times easier when I fall in love with the people that I’m working with and I deeply respect them or their art. But, yeah, I’ve turned down books with people that I either didn’t believe — I thought they were inherently dishonest — or I was uninterested in them. You’ve been with some people, and when they talk you just get bored and you can’t concentrate. If that’s the case, then I can’t do the book because I have to be interested in the person in order to render their voice in a captivating way.

You’ve written novels in addition to the numerous biographies you’ve penned. As an author, is there a more enjoyable experience for you? Would you rather be writing fiction or nonfiction?
I’ve written a lot of novels; I’ve had novels written under my own name, and I’ve written novels as a ghost. So I love writing fiction, and I love making up stories. But I guess I feel about fiction or nonfiction the way I do about R&B, jazz and gospel — I just kinda love it all. And, as long as I’m into a story, I’m a happy guy. As long as I have an idea where it’s going, whether I am making up the story or I am re-scoping the story of a person’s life, I’m happy either way. And I feel very lucky to be able to work in the two categories.

“I still have enough of an ego that I just want to see my name, or else you wouldn’t have heard of me, and we wouldn’t even be having this talk.”

Is there one that comes more naturally?
My mother was a knitter, and when I write I often think of my mom because I feel that’s what I’m doing when I’m writing: I’m knitting a sweater. And I think one of the reasons I’m so prolific is that I don’t take it all that seriously. Not every book has to be War in Peace or Shakespeare. You knit a sweater and it keeps you warm in the winter, and hopefully it looks good and it kinda feels good. And you write a story; hopefully it has an inspiring message and 10,000 or 100,000 or a million people read it, and it makes them feel good. And then you’re going to do another story, and another story, and you’re going to knit a scarf and you’re going to knit another sweater.

I’m just a guy out here writing stories. There were a million storytellers before me, and there are going to be a million after me. So I don’t have to tell myself, “I’m working with T.I., the greatest rapper in the world, or I am working with Marvin Gaye, the greatest R&B singer in the world, and I better write the greatest book.” Those kinds of voices, when they come into writers’ heads, are very destructive because they put undue pressure on you.

David Ritz’s tips for aspiring ghostwriters:
1. Learn how to listen. “As you conduct your interview, you really have to give yourself over to the individual and really try hard to understand them, because, once the interviewing process is over, you’re going to become that person.”

2. Learn the art of interviewing. “Part of the job of the interviewer is not just to ask penetrating questions that will yield important information, but to make the other person feel comfortable and safe.”

3. Be enthusiastic about the process. “Always look for ways to renew your enthusiasm because the book is born out of the dialogue between you and the other person, and, if that dialogue does not contain a lot of enthusiasm, then the book is going to lay flat.”

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Andrea Williams is a freelance writer and journalist based in Nashville, Tenn. Follow her @AndreaWillWrite.

Wondering how to stay relevant in the digital age? Look no further than Elvis Mitchell, a film critic who kept right on going after being let go from a major daily newspaper — albeit not without a couple of major bumps.

Since departing The New York Times in 2005, Mitchell has continued to host KCRW’s “The Treatment,” his popular weekly syndicated public radio show. The program has been on the air since 1996 and allows him to do what he does best: chat in free form with mostly film but occasionally music, TV and literary personalities.

And after briefly (and fitfully) returning to the film criticism ranks in 2010 as co-host for Roger Ebert’s reboot of At the Movies and as chief film critic of Movieline, Mitchell landed an even better gig: film curator for non-profit group Film Independent. In just two short years, Mitchell has put his indelible stamp on the organization’s slate of events at the L.A. County Museum of Art while continuing to spotlight past and present films that he believes in.

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Birthdate: December 6. (“My suit size is 42 regular and shoe size 11, if you’re in the mood to shop.”)
Position: Film curator for Film Independent, host-producer of KCRW’s The Treatment
Hometown: Detroit, Mich.
Career: Successful stints as a film critic with Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Detroit Free Press, L.A. Weekly and The New York Times. In 1996, began hosting the KCRW radio show, The Treatment, which is currently syndicated to several dozen public radio stations around the country. Producer of the 2008 feature documentary The Black List and host of the Turner Classic Movies interview series Under the Influence. In 2011, named film curator for non-profit Film Independent where he orchestrates various co-sponsored activities at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).
Education: Wayne State University, B.A. English
Marital Status: Single
Favorite TV shows: “These days, I’m loving Key & Peele, Bob’s Burgers and it wouldn’t be a day without Rachel Maddow, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Also, a big fan of the Jimmy’s — Fallon and Kimmel — and I try to squeeze in Craig Ferguson’s Late Late Show. Maybe I should try to sleep.”
Guilty pleasure: “I’m too shallow to be guilty about anything.”
Media idol: “Idle what? Sidney Poitier, always.”
Last book read: John Hodgman’s That is All

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Your very first guest on The Treatment was Charlie Rose. What were your objectives when you launched the program, and what do you think accounts for the show’s longevity?
My goal, simply put, was to get a guest on the show every week. Someone who could be articulate about what it is that they do. I really look at it, still, as a week-to-week process. We’ve gone from scrambling for guests in the early days of the show, just because people didn’t know it, to now where we get too much great stuff offered to us all the time.

Excepting Christmas, when we broadcast repeats, we do a new The Treatment for every week of the year. That puts a lot of pressure on, to find and produce content that people want to hear. It’s mostly film stuff, but I also like to try and show how wide-ranging a pop culture world it is and that everything touches on everything else. Film, TV, books, music: all of these worlds of popular culture are interconnected.

“The workload for a film critic today is just so Herculean.”

Are you friends with a lot of the people you interview on The Treatment? I was struck, for example, during a recent episode with Saturday Night Live‘s Bill Hader by how much fun you seemed to be having.
I actually met Bill Hader at a screening, and he walked over to me and told me he was a fan of a show that I did on Turner Classic Movies a few years ago. We started talking and then it was just a matter of our respective schedules. I like him a lot and just knew he would be a great person to have on. It turned out to be a really fun show. A lot of it, though, is I kind of like to have new people on the show who I don’t know and learn about them too.

What are a couple of surprising moments from the earliest days of The Treatment?
To be honest with you, I was kind of surprised that [April 1996 guest] Anthony Hopkins showed up for this new show that nobody had heard of.

I also remember Ben Kingsley came. It was a thrill to have him then, and I had made a pumpkin cheesecake that I brought to KCRW. He asked if he could have some, and, of course, I replied, ‘Oh please, help yourself.’ So he was sitting, eating cheesecake while we were doing the interview, and I thought, if I ever write my autobiography, it’s going to be called Ben Kingsley Ate My Cheesecake.

He’s somebody that I’ve gotten to know through the show. It’s really great when we get repeat guests. We get to ask them different questions and they’re really game. Someone like Kingsley really loves to talk about anything and has had such an interesting, erudite career. We talked about him being the first artist signed to Apple Records and how he changed his breathing for Sexy Beast. I said, ‘That guy seems to be basically sputtering, almost oxygen-deprived,’ and Kingsley said, ‘Yeah, I changed the way I breathed. I wanted that guy to always be on the edge of anger; his brain has to be starved almost of oxygen.’

NEXT >> So What Do You Do, Matt Atchity, Editor-in-Chief of Rotten Tomatoes?

Do you ever go long with The Treatment and, if so, what do you do with the unused audio?
We generally tape 32 minutes of conversation for our 28-minute programs so, no, it’s rare that we go way over. However, it does sometimes happen. For example, my recent interview with Louis C.K. wound up going about an hour and there’s a ton of great stuff there that we weren’t able to use. At some point, if we do wind up getting a lot of shows where there is extra, worthwhile material that we can’t use, we may have to figure out a way to post an extended version.

Would you ever consider, if the opportunity arose, returning to the ranks of a daily newspaper film critic?
[Laughs] The workload for a film critic today is just so Herculean. They’re writing reviews, they’re blogging and they’re doing extra things for the Web. And, with movies that are based on books, you want to at least give the book a thumb-through and prepare. Add in film festivals and I’m not sure how people in the profession can keep up with it today. It’s just shattering now, the workload.

There’s so much stuff out there now, you can almost narrow-cast the ones that have the same taste and are directly in sync with your own likes. And that’s a great thing. On the other hand, you can also be so specific in what you look for on the Internet that you can miss someone who might be able to introduce you to work that you don’t know about. The more diverse voices there are, the better off we are.

“As a kind of superficial forum and endeavor, showbiz journalism is even more shallow than I thought it would be.”

Your October Interview magazine conversation with Joaquin Phoenix got a large amount of media pick-up thanks to his comments that film awards season is “total bullsh*t and the worst-tasting carrot.” What was your take and experience of the feedback you got after this interview?
I was astonished that this got so much reaction. There is a pretty lengthy part of the conversation that is about race, which I thought was as worthy if not more so as to what he was saying about awards season. That he walked away from a movie because he wasn’t happy with the way it was being handled, and he thought there was this inertia that plays on this really antiquated attitude towards people of color in the movies.

And, so far as I can see, almost nobody picked that up. I thought that would have been the thing that had people really jumping. It kind of makes me think that as a kind of superficial forum and endeavor, showbiz journalism is even more shallow than I thought it would be. Because that was an incredible thing to say: that he not only walked away from the movie in terms of the producers and screenwriter on what was lacking in the script, but he also went on to talk about race in other parts of the society and asked pointed questions about it. I somehow thought that would get some coverage.

How do you and Jason Reitman work together on the “Live Read” LACMA series?
We select the scripts together. For example, I chose four of the six scripts for the 2011-12 run. But, as far as announcing each installment to the public and revealing the actors that are taking part, that’s all up to Jason. This is his baby. He puts them together, does all the casting and publicizes them the way he wants to. LACMA and I give him full leeway.

You’re showcasing Beasts of the Southern Wild on November 29 at LACMA and doing a Q&A with the director and cast. Where do you personally rank the film?
It’s great to see an epic made with the limited resources of independent film. Indie films are usually intimate kinds of affairs. So, to see something on that scale, with that kind of voice and a whole new group of actors, literally new to performing. And that little girl — at this point, I think she may win through the Oscars… To see somebody that young with that kind of presence who can hold a movie basically with almost no dialogue is incredibly exciting, in something that changes the literal complexion of movies.

NEXT >> So What Do You Do, Matt Atchity, Editor-in-Chief of Rotten Tomatoes?

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Richard Horgan is co-editor of FishbowlLA.

Managers may think the biggest things employees want from them are pay raises, promotions… and pay raises. And did I mention pay raises?

Sure, raises and promotions make happy workers, but there are other ways you can meet the needs of your direct reports—as well as build morale, loyalty, and productivity—without having to change a budget or a business card. Below, workplace experts weigh in on the four things employees most want and value from their bosses, and the positive ways bosses can respond.

1. Appreciation

When it comes to what employees want from a boss, appreciation is number one. Leadership consultant Roxana Hewertson, CEO of the Highland Consulting Group, says appreciation drives self-esteem, happiness and loyalty.

“The number one difference between people who love their work and people who don’t is the degree of appreciation they receive from their boss and their peers,” says Hewertson.

Such appreciation can take the form of an email or a personal visit—the more public it is, the better. At the lower end of the effort scale, “just pay solid attention to your people, answer their questions, be accessible and say a heartfelt ‘thank you’ as often as possible,” Hewertson says.

Morgan Norman, co-founder and former CEO of a social performance tool called WorkSimple, says employers can also praise workers through social networks, blog posts or company newsletters. “Internally, this helps an employee to feel appreciated by an organization,” says Norman. “Externally, everyone else sees what a great job the worker did, which creates a healthy competition.”

But realize some expressions are more meaningful than others. Anja Schuetz, people management coach and author of Poker Cards for Managers, suggests saying a formal “thank you” instead of a more casual “thanks,” and elaborating on the specific reasons behind the appreciation.

She also recommends managers often ask their staff “what do you think?” even if a decision has already been made. “It really boosts people’s confidence and makes them feel valued and included in the decision-making process,” Schuetz says.

2. Trust

Jennifer Hancock, who’s working on a book about humanism in the business world, says trust is also a key factor in strengthening your relationship with your workers. “Trust your employees. Take their advice seriously. Give them some space to do their job and empower them to bring problems to you,” she says.

“This approach makes a huge difference in whether or not your employees feel valued.”

Halley Bock, CEO and president of Fierce, Inc., a leadership development and training company, says there’s an overall lack of trust in organizations, “and employers need to earn that back.” To do that, Bock suggested “having an open-door policy, welcoming questions and allowing people to have insight into the decision-making process.”

Trust is also developed when managers encourage independent responsibility, but this doesn’t mean letting employees make every decision by themselves.

“People are only truly empowered when they understand which decisions are theirs to make, which decisions need to be jointly made and which decisions should be passed along to others,” says Bock. “Provide clear delegation guidelines, creating roadmaps for professional development and opportunities for employees to request more responsibility.”

3. Honest Communication

Just like in a personal relationship, good communication can enhance the experience, and bad communication can kill it.

“When employees have a voice, they feel as though they are part of a team. And, as a result, they become more engaged,” says Bock, who suggests regularly inviting team members around a table to discuss workplace matters and to highlight those who’ve made a positive difference.

“When employees have opinions, and they are heard and acknowledged, they are more productive, engaged and connected to their organization,” Bock says.

Remember this is about honest communication—don’t think you can play your employees like violins.

Hancock breaks it down: “Be ethical. Be honest. Don’t lie. Be responsible. If you don’t know something, it’s okay to admit it—just make it your responsibility to find out the answer. Don’t say you will do something and then not do it. If you have bad news, share it,” she says. “Your team can’t support you and help you solve problems effectively if you aren’t honest about what’s going on.”

4. Understanding

One of the biggest staff complaints is that a manager just doesn’t understand what’s really going on or how things get done. Joel Gross, founder and CEO of Coalition Technologies, a Web design and marketing firm, says his staff just wants him to understand how complicated it is for them to do their job. “They want me to realize they have to follow a specific process in order to achieve the desired result.”

If feasible, take the time to learn what each member of your staff does, the tools they use, and the keys to their success. It’s okay not to know the details—but ask lots of questions. Make them the “experts.”

Understanding your employees also means taking their whole lives into account. “Everyone who works for you is a real-life human being. They have their own issues and problems, and you need to be compassionate,” says Hancock.

“If you feel compassion for your employees, you will treat them better and come up with better management solutions to help your employees succeed. They aren’t just there to support you. You’re there to support them, as well.”

One good way to show understanding and support is to develop a reasonable work-from-home schedule, or a relaxed seasonal schedule. Even half-day summer Fridays can make a big difference in how staffers feel about their employer—and you.

Melissa Harris-Perry is no journalist. She respects them, she appreciates them, she depends at least partly on their handicraft, but she’s pretty candid about not having a desire to be an on-the-ground reporter or investigative newshound. The role she’s carved in the media pantheon, she clarifies, is offering perspective on the news stories that journalists produce. “I’m an analyst and an academic, and my goal is to take information and understand it, even while I bring data and evidence to bear and engage people who disagree with me in order to test those arguments,” she explains.

That and she hosts an eponymous cable TV show that confronts those little conversational topics like race, gender and politics with aplomb and just a twinge of unapologetic controversy, highlighted in the open letter she wrote to WaPo columnist George Will about his criticism of Americans’ racial empathies for President Obama. Here, the Tulane University professor and author of Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America — who pens a column of the same name for The Nation — talks the upcoming election and the one “presidential” issue she wants thrown off the table for good.

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Name: Melissa Harris-Perry
Position: Author, professor, columnist and host of MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry
Resume: Professor of political science at University of Chicago (1999-2005), politics and African-American studies at Princeton (2006-2010) and, currently, political science at Tulane University, where she serves as founding director of the Anna Julia Cooper Project on Gender, Race, and Politics in the South. Author of Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought (2004) and Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America (2011). Monthly columnist for The Nation and frequent TV and radio commentator. Debuted Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC in February 2012.
Birthdate: October 2
Hometown: New Orleans
Education: B.A. in English from Wake Forest and a Ph.D. in political science from Duke; studied theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York
Marital status: Married
Media idols: Bill Moyers, Gwen Ifill and Rachel Maddow
Favorite TV shows: House Hunters and Parks and Recreation
Guilty pleasures: HGTV and baking
Last book read: Assata: An Autobiography of Assata Shakur
Twitter handle: @MHarrisPerry

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There’s been a lot of talk about the independent or undecided voter. Are people really undecided at this point, and how much do you think news and media can change their votes?
That’s funny you ask. That’s my lede for Saturday morning: Are people actually undecided? When there are clear differences and when we’re less than a month out with two very different candidates in a hotly contested election where there’s been a great deal of information over the past year, there aren’t really undecided voters in terms of preferences. There are just voters who haven’t decided whether they’re going to show up or not. Voting is always sort of a two-stage process: Do I care enough to go through the hassle of voting and, once I’ve decided to vote, have I made a decision about which candidate I will support?

One way to think of it is undecided voters are probably mostly going to support an incumbent so, when I say they’re going to support President Obama, it isn’t because he’s President Obama per se. I just mean that incumbents tend to get those voters. But the real question is: Is this election sufficiently interesting, and are barriers too high for them to end up in the electorate? The only undecided voters that the candidates care about are the ones that live in swing states, and there’s no way that those voters don’t have sufficient information to show up for one candidate or the other.

“I have never once had someone from this network come to me and have a conversation about ratings, good or bad.”

Having a show with your name on it makes you a brand. Who decides the direction of the show, and how do you balance the network’s desire for ratings with your own vision?
I have never once had someone from this network come to me and have a conversation about ratings, good or bad. No one. Maybe they’re talking to my executive producer, and that’s completely possible. But none of them have ever walked in here and said, “You know what? You cannot do that because of the ratings” or “Please do that more because of the ratings.” I will say that I have been completely clear, to the point of being fanatical, that my staff is not to share with me ratings information. I don’t ever want to know because, for me, the point of doing this show is not about the ratings. But I can tell when it’s not been a good weekend just by looking at the staff the next week. It’s kind of like after President Obama had that bad showing in the debates, like you just know that nobody was walking around happy in [Obama campaign quarters] OFA 2012. So, I can kind of tell if I had a week that wasn’t great because people are kind of down but, if I had a week that’s great, people are in there bouncing around.

The editorial decisions for this show, even with my name on it, are made collectively between me, the senior producer, the executive producer and the segment producers. I have veto power and I have been known to veto whole ideas, but I’ve also given my segment producers a great deal of latitude because I trust them. They’re smart, they’re capable, they have great vision. Sometimes what we’ve done has fallen flat — I don’t know if it’s fallen flat in terms of ratings but I’ll come off like, ‘I don’t want to talk about that topic again’ — and other times I’ll come off the set feeling like ‘this is the whole reason I’m doing this show.’

As MSNBC continues a progressive shift in its programming, do you hear from news viewers who pine for the days of unbiased news? How do you think cable networks’ moving away from the “objective” center has affected the political process?
I not only sometimes hear viewers’ angst about wanting journalistic reporting, I feel it myself as somebody consuming the news. I report and analyze what’s going on in the news, but I also want to know what’s happening in the world. For me, that angst is primarily about newspapers. I live in New Orleans, where we’ve lost our daily newspaper and don’t have reporters on the beat in our neighborhoods. That’s a story repeated over and over again across America. So, when I think about what’s lost, I tend to not think about it in terms of television news, which I never particularly watched, but print journalism. If MSNBC were interested in hiring a journalist to do on-air investigative work, that would be great and I would watch that. But it wouldn’t have anything to do with what I do.

NEXT >> So What Do You Do, Roland Martin, CNN Contributor and Host of TV One’s Washington Watch?

I think the biggest cost is the one that Chris Hayes talks about in his book, Twilight of the Elites, that there’s an absence of one place or person or thing that if it says it, you can believe it, whether you’re a Democrat, Republican, liberal or conservative. That is bad for democracy because there have to be some spaces where we can say, ‘I believe that because it’s reported by that person.’ I talked about this last year at Christmas time. If you remember “Yes Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus,” it was the editor of the paper who wrote that letter. Who could now write that letter? Not me. Not Bill O’Reilly. I mean, who could convince you if you were a little kid that there is a Santa Claus? Nobody, because there’s not any one source that we all trust.

There was a clear difference between the tone and fluidity of the presidential debate under Jim Lehrer and the vice presidential debate under Martha Raddatz. Who do you think was the better of the two?
I really enjoyed the vice presidential debate for a couple of reasons. For one, my best friend had just given birth about 10 minutes beforehand. I’d just been in the delivery room with her, and she and I were watching it together in the recovery room. Beyond that, there were things that I think made this debate better. They were physically sitting at the same table, and I think there’s something about that proximity, when people are sitting right next to one another, that creates a sense of engagement. But the other thing is you had the sense that both Biden and Ryan had come to play. They were prepared to be aggressive; they weren’t concerned with this sort of niceness by which they were going to be judged.

Jim Lehrer offered some willingness to engage, but I think Martha Raddatz’s expertise in foreign policy was as much on display as the vice presidential candidates’. I had a sense as a viewer of trusting her to direct the conversation in a substantive way. Not that Jim Lehrer’s not substantive — obviously, he’s got decades of substance behind him — but in this particular debate, he was far more removed and she was much more engaged.

“Some of our greatest presidents have been absolute dorks, and some of our most horrible presidents have been affable, lovely, engaging human beings.”

If you could take one issue off the table in this election, what would it be and why? What, in your opinion, is just white noise that’s distracting from real issues?
Style. Whether or not President Obama is cool or whether Mitt Romney is likable, I really do not care. I assume that Mitt Romney’s wife loves him and Barack Obama’s wife loves him, and they both can probably tell a funny joke when they want to. I mean, really, who cares about style? Some of our greatest presidents have been absolute dorks, and some of our most horrible presidents have been affable, lovely, engaging human beings. That’s not the business of politics.

The course you teach at Tulane, Black Women’s Political Activism, is surely a catalyst for your students to get involved. What do you think is the most pressing issue facing women today, and what can they do to affect change in that area?
I teach a lot of gender-based classes. This is one of my favorites, though. For women in general, I think there are two critical issues and they are linked to one another: one is the issue of poverty, economic security and economic justice, and the other is about reproductive rights. And of course, those things are linked. You cannot have economic justice unless you have control of your reproductive capacity. It just is not possible for women. At the same time, control of your reproductive destiny doesn’t matter much if you can’t feed yourself or your family.

NEXT >> So What Do You Do, Roland Martin, CNN Contributor and Host of TV One’s Washington Watch?

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Back in 2010, the powers-that-be at The Wall Street Journal herded a small group of tech masterminds into a windowless room in a crash, six-week project to create its iPad app. For David Ho, that time and the months of 16-hour days that followed as first editor was the hardest thing he had ever done professionally. “It was improving and holding the thing together when it was all new and wobbly,” he remembers. “It was more than a news-journalism-tech challenge. It felt like some crazy endurance race.”

Still, that’s not the biggest trial he’s faced. The father of a son with autism, Ho and his wife have navigated the emotional and sometimes exhausting dichotomy of questioning and understanding at the same time. When he weighs the task of shaping and molding readable — even enjoyable — material for WSJ‘s tablet and iPad edition against that kind of challenge, the former seems a lot less daunting.

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Name: David Ho
Position: Editor of mobile, tablets and emerging technology at The Wall Street Journal and lead editor of its iPad and tablet edition
Resume: Went from college editor to producer/programmer on the original WSJ.com production team. Joined national staff at the AP Washington bureau and cited by the Supreme Court in the 2000 presidential election decision. Served as AP’s national consumer affairs and telecom reporter. Returned to New York to cover tech, telecom and terrorism for Cox Newspapers; was laid off. Rejoined WSJ in 2009.
Hometown: Brooklyn, NY
Education: BA in journalism/BFA in creative writing, Brooklyn College, City University of New York
Marital status: Married
Media idol: Benjamin Franklin
Favorite TV shows: “Months ago, it was Game of Thrones. At the moment, my favorite TV time is revisiting Star Blazers with my 8-year-old son.”
Guilty pleasure: Trader Joe’s baked onion rings
Last book read: Moby Dick
Twitter handle: @davidho

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The WSJ was one of the first major newspapers to develop an iPad app, and it was met with both cheers and jeers. What did that process teach you about what people want in a technology?
The best technology is invisible. It doesn’t call attention to itself. It doesn’t get in the way of the experience. It just works. That’s why books and newspapers are great tech. I like to think of a newspaper — the actual paper kind — as a highly refined and still very effective mobile news technology. And that has lessons for mobile today if you think about where and when and how people consume news. People like technology that’s clean, simple and intuitive.

Not everyone agrees with this, but I also think people should have options. One of the reasons people like our app is that there are many ways to navigate and explore the news. There are distinct styles for reading news and a good app allows for that. But my number one rule for mobile and tablets is do not annoy. It’s so easy to piss people off on a mobile device, and the threshold for what people will put up with before they move on is very low. You know all the technology that’s supposed to make our lives easier, but winds up making things more complicated and frustrating? That’s what you have to fight against.

“My number one rule for mobile and tablets is do not annoy.”

Besides photos, which types of stories would you say translate particularly well on a tablet?
You mean other than people with iPads wanting to read news about iPads? Tablets are great for video, like streaming breaking news. They shine when it comes to interactive storytelling. Touch screens allow for a very intimate experience, exploring the news with your fingers and tapping things like 360-degree photos with gyro control. Those can be pretty cool.

A quote from you: “Technology is easy. Journalism is hard.” Explain.
This one gets me in trouble with my developer friends. To be clear, this is not some death match between writing code and writing news. And, to be really clear, the Journal has a kick-ass mobile tech team that works super hard. OK, I should be safe now. That line is something I’ve said to journalists worried what new technology is doing to their jobs and how they can keep up. My take is if you can bang out 200 words in 10 minutes, learning to shoot and share video with your iPhone isn’t going to kill you. All this blogging, Twitter, multimedia reporting with smartphones, none of it is harder than the bread and butter skills reporters already have: interviewing, accuracy, clarity, speed, news judgment. But here’s my tip: Technology is painful when it’s mandatory, when skills are pushed on people. You beat that by getting in front of it, by making it fun, like a part of your life. Edit together video of family and pets first, and post it somewhere. Do it for yourself. Then when you have to do it for work, it’s not all stressful.

Rupert Murdoch’s The Daily seems to be struggling a bit with some of the initial star reporters and editors already leaving. How closely have you been watching what The Daily is doing? What do you think they’ve done correctly and possibly missed the mark on?
I think everyone involved in tablet and mobile news watches The Daily. It’s this bold experiment: a brand new news organization created from scratch. How often do you see that these days? The Daily pioneered a lot of ways to deliver news on tablets. They’ve been brave and pretty aggressive in embracing the technology, especially when it comes to graphics and layout and design. And they’ve done great things with touch control. I’m not sitting in their office, so hard for me to talk about how’re they’re doing or what works or doesn’t work for them.

NEXT >> So What Do You Do, Jessica Bennett, Executive Editor of Tumblr’s Storyboard?

From the outside, I do see one challenge for everyone doing this is knowing tablet audiences well, because they’re changing so fast. We’ve gone from early adopter to mainstream consumer electronics in no time. It does look like The Daily is trying to make their production process easier. They dropped their landscape view not long ago. That I get. Supporting two tablet rotations all the time is a lot of work. It’s tough to put out a tablet issue every day. It’s hard when you’re actually building and editing and curating and designing the thing, and not just regurgitating news feeds into randomized templates. There are so many variables: behavior on WiFi, behavior on 3G, offline, online, making it work in portrait, making it work in landscape, making it fit different size screens.

“The mouse is dead. It just doesn’t know it’s been caught in a better mousetrap.”

What type of training does a journalist need to snag a job like yours? And, because the field is still emerging, how does one even go about finding these job openings?
Not sure what training I need to snag a job like mine. I’m the first one in this job here and it’s kind of evolved around me. But I’ve hired a few mobile editors since this all started, so I can tell you what helps. I can teach someone HTML basics in an hour but a lot of news skills only come with experience. I love it when folks can do Photoshop and the like, but more than any one kind of expertise, it’s important to have a general and deep technology comfort level and interest. This is all moving so fast, you have to adapt daily, hourly. It’s as much about making news decisions as it is troubleshooting tech problems. You need to be able to talk to developers as much as you talk to reporters and editors. You need a foot in each world, editorial and technology. And there’s the business side too, so I guess you need a third foot. A big thing: Gather up a few smartphones and tablets and use them, use them, use them until your fingers hurt.

What do you think will be the next big product or phenomenon to impact the media business?
The mouse is dead. It just doesn’t know it’s been caught in a better mousetrap. I’ve been waiting for a chance to say that. Technology is becoming much more intimate, much more an extension of ourselves. There’s less hardware in between us and what we experience. Touch screens are just the beginning. The seeds are out there now: voice control, motion gesture control, eye tracking. I think there’s a lot of potential in augmented reality. Combine that with the Google glasses project and some other prototypes and you can see this future where interacting with media will be constant, literally in your face.

NEXT >> So What Do You Do, Jessica Bennett, Executive Editor of Tumblr’s Storyboard?

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On October 15, Paperless Post will defy its name and add a print component: Paper by Paperless Post. Users will be able to mix and match digital with hard copy sending, for example, one batch of personally designed holiday cards electronically and ordering another that can then be sent via USPS. Or, they can create and then print the whole lot of wedding or party invitations.

It’s the latest turn for a service that made its first profit in the fall of 2010 and continues to flourish three years after launch. Mediabistro recently spoke with co-founder Alexa Hirschfeld about this fast-moving entrepreneurial journey and the real reason so many of her fellow Harvard alums find big business success.

Your brother James, while still at Harvard, presented you with the idea for Paperless Post. What was your initial reaction? And did you have any major initial concerns?
My initial reaction was I specifically said, ‘I think people will use it, but I’m not sure they’ll pay for it.’ Then we got into it argumentatively, and I was listening to him argue about not just the idea but him as the creative subtext of this potential product.

It became clear that to create this product, he would be the right person to do it. Not everybody could envision what it looks like. And what it looks like is a really important part of why it would be valuable to users. When we were growing up, James was very artistic with painting and sculpture. Friends of my mom would see his work and say, ‘Oh my God, this is so amazing.’ I was thinking it would be like that but on a potentially highly-distributed platform. And I totally got into it. But at first, it was hard for me because I didn’t see it the way he did.

“It’s very, very hard to build something from scratch — even harder when you don’t have users yet.”

The two of you spent Memorial Day weekend in 2007 hashing out a business plan and then the next two years going through what you have described as a “really painful” gestation period. What were some of the reasons for that?
It was painful because we were just going on our own beliefs. The data we had was from the kind of people that you trust 100 percent. But it’s very, very hard to build something from scratch — even harder when you don’t have users yet. We had to implement the product before we had users. After we had users, everything changed. Now, it’s difficult in different ways, but I really love it. That Memorial Day weekend, we were in our parents’ living room in the city. Everybody else was somewhere like the beach, the country. It was really hot, and he had just finished his second year at Harvard.

The beta launch in the fall of 2008 caught on with some high-profile users, like Condoleeza Rice. How did you get her and other recognizable users to jump onto Paperless Post?
We required people to have received an invitation to be able to register. It was a process that was really actively pushing people out of the system. That’s not the reason we acquired a user like her, but she came through another gatekeeper, which is pretty much how all of our users come to us. The invites went through our closed circle of Harvard friends initially, because we were both really paranoid. We had competitors then, and we were trying to smooth out the process of the workflow. We handed out user names and passwords very carefully back then, and Rice was maybe two or three degrees separated from someone we knew at the school.

You personally made the transition in 2009 from working as an assistant for Katie Couric at CBS News to working full-time on the Paperless Post. What did you learn from working with her?
She is very smart and very effective. I worked for her for a year and a half, and I watched the way she does everything to make her job successful. It’s not just journalism, but also her ability to get interviews and ability to charm people. I respect her a lot, and that’s helped me in a lot of different operational capacities.

NEXT >> Hey, How’d You Get Everyone Buzzing About #codeyear, Zach Sims?

After three rounds of funding, Paperless Post became profitable just over a year after launch, which is a remarkable feat really. What were some of the keys to achieving that so quickly?
We started when the market crashed in 2008, and had a really painful experience of trying to raise money without a business model fully in place. So we had one, which is different than the one we have now. And I guess because we really started from a position of not selling ads and actually needing to get users to pay, we were able to hone in really quickly on where the value was. We read a lot of books on pricing and what the value was for our users. By December 2010, we had a year and a half of data on payments, and it became really clear. We stopped charging commissions on ticket sales, then it was stamps for postage, then it was coins that you paid per person, based on how fancy the document was. Like if you added an envelope liner or a colored envelope or stuff like that. And that kind of model grows geometrically. And just to be really clear, we were cash flow positive in that quarter, but we went back and re-invested that money in the company to make it grow faster.

“Everything changes once the race is on, once the product is launched.”

Much has been written about Harvard and how it prepares people for the business world. What advantages did attending that school provide you and James?
I think it’s really simple: It’s the people that you’re surrounded by when you go there. A good friend of mine started a company called Vostu, which for a while was the biggest gaming company in Brazil. He started it in 2006, and to see your friends, a person who is like you, start something like that. It’s inspiring, it makes you think, ‘Oh, we could do that too, probably, if we had a good idea.’ I was also in Mark Zuckerberg’s class. I hadn’t met him until recently, but he’s obviously a very smart, impressive person. Several people who work at Paperless Post are also people I knew at Harvard. I think it’s about whatever makes people driven. Those people are everywhere, but Harvard provided a model for that type of person that I’ve now met more in spades outside of school and in New York. Everybody who works at Paperless Post has that quality, and it’s really fun to work with those sorts of driven, passionate people.

You had a great quote in Fast Company: “Even if your product isn’t as perfect as you’d like, perfection in your hands isn’t relevant. You need to know what your consumer thinks.” Can you talk a bit about your own beta phase and how the product was shaped by initial users?
It’s sort of like a gun shooting off at the beginning of a race. Everything changes once the race is on, once the product is launched. You start getting all this info and data. And the weird thing is that the info and data is never what you expect. Although it’s rarely out of left field, it’s always much more honest and almost brutal in that way than what you’d think.

For example, our first product version did not include envelope liners. We had this one maroon option, and one of our first user emails was from someone who loved the service but felt the colors of her invitation did not match the color of the envelope liner. Sure enough, other people mentioned the same thing. That led to our first product customization and it doubled our revenue after we added it.

Hirschfeld’s tips for start-up success:
1. Believe in the product. “You have to keep believing and keep reassuring each other that what you’re building is not crazy, that it is something that other people are going to want, to help get you through this inevitably long process.”

2. Don’t focus on PR. “The more you try to pitch your story, the less you seem to get covered. But, when you do something that someone wants to track you down for, that’s when you get genuine coverage.”

3. Take awards and citations with a grain of salt. “I’ve never taken that stuff seriously. Often, those things don’t matter; what matters more is getting things done. Also, what scares me is that awards and positive write-ups seem like the kind of thing that make you think you’ve made it, which I would never think.”

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Richard Horgan is co-editor of FishbowlLA.

There are two standout qualities about the media whirlwind that is Tanika Ray: physically, it’s her signature — and covetable — mass of curly reddish hair. Professionally, it’s her dynamic, built-for-red-carpets personality, wielded at this year’s MTV Video Music Awards and Essence Music Festival. She’s in talks to cover similar events for Yahoo!, too. Interviewing, she says, is her thing, one of those naturally cultivated talents that have made her sought after for celebrity dirt-digging on Extra and snazzy interior design on HGTV shows.

Bypassing the typical J-school-to-journalism career route, the self-proclaimed Renaissance woman was a dancer and an actress before she just kind of pirouetted into hosting. “I’m not one of those people that has a five-year plan. I’m very go with the flow, very free-spirited,” Ray admits. “I was watching an interview on the red carpet and I said, ‘I can do that.’ It was the same way with interior design.” And, this Thanksgiving, she’s launching mindbodycasa.com, a lifestyle website she describes as “the diary of a global chica and a love letter to all of the favorite things that inspire success.” Touché.

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Name: Tanika Ray
Position: Freelance TV host
Resume: Started as a professional dancer before transitioning to acting on shows, including NYPD Blue, Living Single and Wayans Brothers. Landed a hosting gig on Nickelodeon’s The Big Help and went on to host shows on Lifetime, CBS, TLC and SOAPnet. Joined Extra as correspondent and host in 2004 and spent five years there covering entertainment news. Became contributor for HGTV’s Design Star and HGTV’d. Now starring on CW’s Oh Sit! and freelancing for red carpet events.
Birthdate: January 25
Hometown: Los Angeles
Education: BA in theater arts from Spelman College; also studied theater at NYU
Marital status: Single
Media idol: “I hate to be cliché, but it has to be Oprah. She’s really shaped me as a person indirectly.”
Favorite TV shows: Sex and the City, Scandal, So You Think You Can Dance and The Cosby Show
Guilty pleasure: Good conversation over good cocktails
Last book read: Fear of Flying by Erica Jong
Twitter handle: @tanikaray

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You started your career as an actress and dancer. Why become a reporter, and how has your background influenced what you do now?
It’s not about why for me. It’s more about why not. When it comes down to it, I’m an artist. That’s the common denominator for all of the things I’ve done in my career. It’s not about being still in a place and holding on to it for dear life. I don’t think we live in a society where we celebrate ‘oh, for 35 years I’ve had the same job.’ That’s just not how we’re wired anymore and there’s no security in that anyway. So, why not be free to check off everything on your life before your days come to an end?

I made a pact with myself when I was little that I was going to be a professional dancer before I was 30, because I guess 30 was the oldest thing in the world I could think of, and I ultimately got the experience of dancing with Will Smith and doing the Grammys with [singer] Brandy. It was amazing. But after a couple of years, I was like, ‘OK I did it. Check.’ And I organically moved into acting. But once I was in the profession, there was something nagging like, I’m not there yet. Like, this is part of it but I’m not there yet. So, it’s always been about fulfilling my dreams one at a time.

“I don’t think we live in a society where we celebrate ‘oh, for 35 years I’ve had the same job.'”

You’ve worked for Nickelodeon, TBS and HGTV. How do you decide which gigs are right for your career?
I dream big and go with the flow. I’ve been in this career long enough that I can wait for people to put me in their box and understand what I can offer or I can do it myself. Now that I’ve had a myriad of experiences, I want to siphon them into what I see as interesting television or an interesting place on the Web. I started doing freelance because I still love the red carpet. That’s something I get a beautiful high from, connecting with person after person after person. It’s like a party for me, and I love touching base with these figures and where they are in their lives and sharing that with the audience. It’s one of my gifts. I love sharing that with not just myself and that person, it’s myself, that person and you at home watching. It’s a three-person conversation. I’ve been freelancing for Essence magazine. I was the host for their Women in Hollywood event, their pre-Oscar event. I did a two-hour special on TV One. I am now doing a show that’s been airing since July for the CW called Oh Sit!. I appreciate these moments when I’m sort of cherry-plucking the times when I want to work for other people.

Did you feel burnt out when you were doing Extra?
Oh, absolutely. I was a victim of my own success. They had other people that they could go to, but I had such great rapport with some celebrities and their PR that they would request me. So even when I had booked days, I then extended them from 8 in the morning until 10 at night every single day, because they started throwing more pieces under my name. I did that for five years straight, seven days a week, 24/7. It was wonderful, it was the most blessed job I’ve had, but I’m definitely not a lifer in that way. I have so much respect for Shaun Robinson, because she’s been doing it for almost 20 years and I love that that’s who she is. I, however, need to be free. So, when I say I’m a pop culture specialist, it crosses all mediums from television to websites to writing. I’m always expanding my brand.

NEXT >> So What Do You Do, Nina Parker, Producer and Correspondent for The Insider?

How did you parlay your passion for design into a gig on HGTV?
Along the way as I was working really hard for Extra, I found that I was at home asleep and I was at the studio working, and it became this robotic, exhausting cycle. When I was home, I could be myself, I could breathe, I could have a little space, and I wanted to make my space as comfortable as possible, because that was where I went to rejuvenate. I’d rip pages out of magazines like Domino and Elle Décor and started to do little DIY projects. I would go to the thrift store and get little vintage couches, recover them and love the ownership of “I created that.” Creation is such a beautiful place for me to be. An old friend of mine was an executive at HGTV and was like, ‘I know you always liked design and we’d love to have you on board.’

I think what I bring to the table is excitement and energy for whatever I’m talking about, whatever I’m hosting, and that speaks volumes more than what the genre is. I think that’s hard for people to wrap their brains around, but it all makes sense in my head because it’s all communication. I sort of stumbled into interior design and HGTV legitimized my love for it. It went from being a passion and hobby to realizing I knew what I was talking about. I never felt so at home with other talent as I did at HGTV. That was a really beautiful experience.

“I actually witnessed somebody in the office cheering when something unfortunate happened to a celebrity.”

Entertainment news is often criticized for being gossipy and kitschy. Were you ever caught up in that world or asked to do an assignment or story you felt uncomfortable with?
A hundred times. But that’s the nucleus of that job. It’s not the [Entertainment Tonight] we all loved in the 80s. It’s gotten a little uglier and it’s another part of the reason why it was time for me to go. It wasn’t just me being “burnt out,” but it was also being disappointed in the agenda of entertainment news. My naiveté got me, because I realized no one ultimately cares about the artistry. Nobody cares if Halle Berry stretched farther than she ever did before while playing a character. They care about who she’s dating, who she’s breaking up with, who she’s in a lawsuit with. I actually witnessed somebody in the office cheering when something unfortunate happened to a celebrity. You lose sight of what is real when you live everyday like ‘gotta get the big story, gotta get the big story.’ That becomes everything and people act like they are curing cancer, but they’re not. They are passing along frivolous, unimportant details of somebody’s private life. It just made me feel gross.

A lot of people want a career like yours for the fun or perceived glamour of it. What’s the one difficult thing about the job that aspiring TV hosts may not expect?
The glamour quotient is all an illusion. It’s very glamorous to the outsider, never to the person who has to trek around Los Angeles in their own car, make sure their makeup’s OK, go from one shoot to the other and manage everyone’s expectations. As long as the glamour quotient lasts on television, that’s how glamorous it really is. But it doesn’t matter what I tell people. They’re going to do it anyway. People are so enamored with this career choice. I can give them the ugliest story ever, and they think their experience is going to be different. At the fore, the most important thing is to be happy and content with yourself, so do it until you can’t do it anymore and then get out.

NEXT >> So What Do You Do, Nina Parker, Producer and Correspondent for The Insider?

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Lisa Ling took home a pair of signature awards this summer: The L.A. chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association presented her with the V3 Visibility Award, while non-profit Shelter Partnership honored her Our America episode “The Lost American Dream” for tackling the topics of poverty and homelessness.

Ling’s willingness and expert ability to let interview subjects guide the story is what has made the OWN investigative reporting series so compelling. In just two seasons, Our America has put a human face on a wide variety of subjects — faith healing, swingers, gay Christians, heroin addiction, modern polygamy and more — that in lesser hands would have quickly devolved into sensationalism. The program has also managed to generate real-world impact: During the August 21 special two-hour season finale, Exodus International leader Alan Chambers admitted that her earlier report about the organization forced him to change his attempts to “de-gay” men and women.

Yet, for a 24-year veteran like Ling, sparking such change is more than just a career coup — it’s a personal mission. “People are feeling very challenged in this downward spiraling economy, and so many feel their voices are not being heard,” she explained. “Our program is trying to give a voice to people who would otherwise not have one.”

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Position: Executive producer and host of OWN’s Our America
Resume: Began her career as a correspondent for nationally syndicated teen show Scratch when she was 15. Became senior war correspondent for Channel One News, where she did extensive international reporting. Named co-host for The View in 1999 and helped the show win its first Emmy. Left in 2002 to return to international reporting. Host of National Geographic‘s Explorer and correspondent for ABC’s Nightline and The Oprah Winfrey Show. Co-authored the bestselling book Somewhere Inside, about her efforts to free her sister Laura from the clutches of the 2009 Pyongyang incarceration. Debuted Our America on OWN in 2011.
Birthday: August 30
Hometown: Sacramento, CA
Education: University of Southern California
Marital status: Married
Favorite TV shows: The Daily Show, Game of Thrones
Guilty pleasure: Online shopping
Media idol: “Oprah… of course”
Last book read: “Fifty Shades of Grey… JUST KIDDING! Lulu in the Sky by Leong Eng”
Twitter handle: @lisaling

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Our America continues your long association with Oprah Winfrey. What is an example of an interviewing or research technique you have learned from her?
There is perhaps no better listener than Oprah Winfrey; that’s why she’s such a terrific interviewer. Even when she’s not on television, she looks you right in the eyes and waits to hear your opinion or thoughts on whatever the issue may be. Both Oprah and one of my previous bosses, Barbara Walters, are truly exceptional listeners and that makes all the difference.

A recent episode of Our America focused on the lives of men who did prison time for crimes they did not commit, as well as one man on death row whose daughter is trying to clear him. How do you determine which topics you’ll focus on?
The beautiful thing about Our America is that there is never a shortage of topics. We attempt to explore the diversity and the complexity that comes with being an American.

“OWN is hands down the best place I’ve ever worked.”

Together with the production company that produces Our America with me, Part 2 Pictures, we are constantly pitching stories. Our process is a very collaborative one, but ultimately the green light comes from OWN. The network is also constantly suggesting topics for us to tackle. While many of our stories have been quite hard-hitting, we try to balance each season with a combination of topics that are challenging, and some that are a bit lighter. My prerequisite, however, is that, whatever the topic, it will inspire conversation and thought. I think that we are more evolved as people, the more we know about one another.

You have a great ability to gain the trust of your interview subjects and make them feel comfortable on camera. What are some key elements that all on-camera hard news interviewers should respect?
I think the reason we’ve been successful with getting people to give us interviews is because they know that Our America is a show that will not exploit or sensationalize their stories. It takes a lot of courage to share some of the things that people share with us. At times, people will tell us things they’ve never even told their closest friends or family members. We take very seriously the need to responsibly tell people’s stories. Knowing that our objective is to treat everyone we encounter with dignity has made people feel a lot more comfortable than they might feel doing other shows. We believe in being respectful and, in turn, that respect is always reciprocated.

NEXT >> So What Do You Do, Lola Ogunnaike, Freelance Journalist and TV Personality?

Throughout your career and now for Our America, you travel a great deal. How has technology affected your job? Does the fact that everyone, whether they’re in the media or not, is “reporting” on issues through Twitter and other social media platforms changed what you do?
Instant access to information via technology has made my job a lot easier. I am not a breaking news reporter, so I generally don’t have to act immediately if breaking news happens. But, when I am in the field and need info, it helps tremendously to be able to access any amount of information necessary. I admit that I am a bit of a Twitter junkie. I really love being able to be connected with the people who watch Our America. Instant feedback and being able to interact with viewers is an extraordinary thing. This past season, I live-tweeted during almost every episode and I had so much fun doing it. Twitter is truly revolutionary.

It seems like cable channels such as OWN and HD Net have really provided a fertile, new home for investigative journalism. Do you have complete freedom as to what to cover? And how different is your OWN environment from when you were doing reports for Nightline or National Geographic?
I am so lucky to work for OWN. It is the most creative freedom I’ve ever had in a job and I am so incredibly grateful for that. I also have a great deal of respect for the OWN executives who oversee our show. We really operate in such a collaborative way, and I love it. I’ve never felt pressure to do anything about which I have felt uncomfortable. OWN is hands down the best place I’ve ever worked.

“I had a great time as co-host [of The View], but I don’t regret for a second where I went from there.”

I had an incredible experience when I first started working for National Geographic in 2005. I worked with producers and executives who were passionate and collaborative. Years later, however, I’ll just say that male ego interfered with the process. So, I went to OWN and couldn’t be happier. I still contribute to Nightline when I can, and I’m thrilled that it’s performing so well in the ratings. I think the fact that Nightline is doing so well is a testament to the fact that people are hungry for good, strong storytelling.

What is an example of a topic you ultimately rejected for Our America, and why?
Neither Oprah nor I will cover hate groups. Giving people who express hatred toward people a platform of any kind, even if it’s critical, is not something that we will do.

What are your thoughts on all the changes in hosts The View has gone through, and do you ever miss being on the show?
Given how long the show has been on air, there hasn’t been that much change. I had a great time as co-host, but I don’t regret for a second where I went from there. The only time I really miss being on The View is during election seasons. It really is a terrific forum in which to discuss politics in a serious but entertaining way.

How did your sister Laura’s 2009 experiences in North Korea change your outlook on investigative reporting in dangerous areas?
Actually, what happened with Laura has made me more defiant than ever about the need for solid journalism. The fact that Laura was illegally apprehended and held for so long for wanting to report about the horrific things that are happening to North Korean refugees was just tragic. We need journalists to uncover truths. It’s never more important than now.

NEXT >> So What Do You Do, Lola Ogunnaike, Freelance Journalist and TV Personality?

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Richard Horgan is co-editor of FishbowlLA.

Sometimes, a job you took with even the highest of expectations can morph into a completely untenable situation. Leaving that job might be the best idea for both your career and your health. But how can you tell a bad situation from just a really bad day? Below, workplace experts share five signs that it might finally be time to quit your day job.

1. You take the stress home.

Long work hours are one thing, but constant stress is another. If you’re living with work stress at night and during the weekends, it might be time to give yourself a break.

“When you feel depressed or like your stomach is in knots on Sunday night as you prepare for the work week, this is a sure sign you need a new direction,” says Tiffani Murray, an HR consultant and author of Stuck on Stupid: A Guide for Today’s Professional Stuck in a Rut. “Any job that’s a detriment to your health is not a job to hold on to.”

Temporary fix: Keep work at the office by turning off the iPhone when at home, and not working weekends unless it’s a requirement. While you’re at it, use your vacation, personal days and lunch breaks, too. Sometimes, just giving your brain a break will do the trick.

2. You’ve hit a professional ceiling.

Not having opportunities for future advancement should make you think twice about the job you have now. “It’s time to move on whenever you find you’re doing the same thing in your role as you were doing two years ago, with no opportunity to challenge yourself,” says Mary Lee Gannon, president of StartingOverNow.com.

Lauren Still, founder of the consulting firm Careerevolution, agrees. “It’s time to quit when you’ve outgrown your role and there’s no opportunity for additional professional learning and development.”

Temporary fix: If you’re stuck in neutral at a small company, consider the growth path at a larger company, or ask yourself why you feel so stuck. Have you asked for more challenging duties or just expected them to be given to you? If it’s the latter, it might be time to schedule that performance review with your boss. Having realistic professional aspirations is key to staying motivated.

3. You’re in a toxic work environment.

How do you know when a work situation is truly toxic? “I would define a toxic environment as one that is highly political, where deception, back stabbing and un-merited favoritism become the norm rather than the exception,” says Caroline McClure, a veteran recruiter and principal at ScoutRock. “This can become the culture of an entire company, or simply within your own department.”

Bottom line: This is a job, not Survivor: Office Space. If you’re being abused or unfairly disregarded, it may be time to hit the high road.

Temporary fix: If the problem is just with a single co-worker and not the entire corporate culture, keep a good record of what the offensive colleague did and when. Then, bring it up to your direct supervisor or human resources department, offering specific examples. If you’re wondering about your legal options, know that a “hostile work environment” only occurs in very specific cases to very specific kinds of people. But, if you’ve got nowhere to turn, it may be best to at least start looking at opportunities in other departments or companies.

4. The company’s in trouble.

In short: Don’t be the last sailor on a sinking ship. Mary Hladio, a veteran HR consultant and president of Ember Carriers, says, “If you’re worried about layoffs, it’s a good idea to begin on an exit strategy.” Hladio’s warning signs of corporate failure include hiring freezes, budget cuts, missed financial projections and multiple restructures.

Basically, the moment you start seeing leaks, begin looking at other boats.

Temporary fix: If your industry is known for its ups and downs (ahem, media pros), it could just be that the company is struggling through a transition. So, keep things in perspective before you bolt.

5. You think you might get fired.

Whether it’s your fault or out of your control, a tarnished reputation means you should be looking for clean slates elsewhere. There are usually hints your job’s in jeopardy—recognize them to get out first.

For example, be on alert if your boss asks you to train a back-up person. “This is frequently code for, ‘I need to make sure someone can do your job before I fire you,'” says Roberta Chinsky Matuson, author of Suddenly in Charge: Managing Up, Managing Down, Succeeding All Around.

Other signs things are not looking so swell for you: bad performance reviews, being relieved of responsibilities, a sharp decrease in interactions with your boss and new job postings that sound suspiciously familiar.

Temporary fix: Unfortunately, there isn’t one for this situation. Once the boss has warned you multiple times or you spot the above signs of a pink slip, it’s best to just start heading for the door. Whether you leave a bad situation immediately or wait to have another job in hand, always keep your eyes open, your hopes high and your resume fresh. You deserve a job that’s right for you.