Former journalist Carl Sessions Step, who teaches at the University of Maryland and is senior editor of the American Journalism Review, wrote an interesting piece for this month's edition. The story focuses on the increasing frustration among young staffers at the Charlotte Observer about their paper's slow evolution. The Observer's under-30 workers seem scared about their futures in journalism. They wonder, will they still have jobs in 20 years? The layoffs and lack of job security in the industry, coupled with their paper's "discouraging progress" (read: few A1 stories that attract younger readers, more talk than action and editors' apparent refusal to adapt at the reader's pace ), seem to be making these young journos question their industry despite their passion for it. Toward the end of the article, Step gets a little more positive by focusing on some of the staff's efforts to have more impact in newsroom decisions and become part of the solution, rather than dwelling on the problems but I was a bit sad after I read this.
What do you think about the article? Do you think young journos should be as scared as those at the Observer? I'd like to think if we focus on the future possibilities available on the Web in the form of video, flash presentations, etc., we won't need to stress as much as elder journos would tell us.
Labels: career_advise, editors, journalism, media, newspapers, organization, teens
As some of you are aware, since graduating I have been applying solely to papers in Florida. The Sunshine State provides both an excellent climate and market for a budding journalist and has great opporutunities for my girlfriend's career as well -- music education.
It also, however, has a very competitive job marketplace. I just got off the phone with the state's "#1 ranked weekly," the High Springs Herald. Unfortunately, this is about the 20th job in the past two months that I have not been hired for.
Mr. Ronald Dupont, Jr., who has previously worked with the New York Times and other large papers, had some very interesting things to say. I bought all of them and I would like to share them with you.
The first thing I asked after hearing they had gone with somebody else is, of course, "why?" And he replied to me with wisdom beyond what I have heard from all others.
"Well, Matt, one of the things that stuck out to me was that you provided some color clips, which was rare for the applicants," he said, referring to the 70 applications he received from all over the country.
But what he didn't like was how I presented those clips and how many I sent. In his long job description posted to JournalismJobs.com, he insisted that applicants send at least 10 clips, but that he preferred 20. This is highly unusual, and is certainly the first time I have heard of an editor requesting so many. What he told me, though, was that all editors want that many, but they just don't know it.
Who knows where the idea of sending only five or 10 clips came from, but that idea is wrong. I know this now, after talking with Mr. Dupont. And, even though some of you may have received jobs or internships with that many, I would still argue that a different approach will result in more bites. Especially when you are competing with 70 applicants that have as much as 30 years experience.
He said, "now, Matt I noticed you have just sort of paper-clipped these together, and that certainly did not stick out."
Why, on earth, would someone paper-clip a cover letter, resume and 10 clips together? Do they really think this is what an editor wants to do is fumble through 13 pages of clips for each of the 70 applications they receive? No!
If it's not in a three ring binder, it nearly gets thrown away from the start. And with the use of a three ring binder, you can use sections that divide all of your clips into features, news, columns, etc. The editor can just kick back in his chair, put his feet up and read YOU Magazine. Only interested in features? Well just tab over my friend. You don't have to read every headline to find one, you just read one tab.
And now back to the five clip rule. Job description says only send five clips? Send 20! Or 50! Or as many good examples of your work that you can find. There is absolutely no reason to listen to an editor that says only send five clips. This is not failing to meet an expectation, this is exceeding it.
Why would an editor be displeased with 20 well-organized and presented clips? It's not like they will have to hunt for what they want. If they want an example of a community feature, they just tab over and read a couple of features. No matter what type of clip they want, they can get it instantaneously. TRY doing that with five clips paper-clipped together!
With 30 clips all the work you have done is represented. The editor will not be overwhelmed, they will be pleased. They will think they made a mistake in only requesting five clips. You will have changed their mind.
So, from now on, I am sending a spiral bound book with a table of contents, tabs, a few color clips, and at least 20 clips that represent all the flavors of writing I have done. I am going to send it to the editors that only request five clips, and they are going to set mine aside to read after they have been through all the "others" who just send a simple envelope with loose sheets of paper inside.
Sure, I'll spend $5 to $10 more per application, but that's not as bad as the more than $100 I have already wasted.
Mr. Dupont shared multiple stories with me of times when he walked into offices where 50 applications had been stacked and his was on top. He also told me of a presentation given by a Miami Herald editor who gave everyone in the presentation an applicant's envelope. He told them to tear them open, and then toss aside any with less than a half-page cover letter or 10 clips. At the end there was only one left.
Talk about separating yourself from the rest of the pack.
I'll keep you posted on the results of this new tactic.
Labels: applications, applying, career_advise, clips, editors, job hunt, job postings, job search, job_posting, newspapers, portfolio, resumes
We're finally getting
soundslides down here at my mid-sized paper. If you don't have it, you most likely will within six months: It's cheap and handy.
Since we're getting it, I figured this was a good time to put a bit of a public service message out there to anyone going into newspapers: You'll likely be using this product, so spend a few minutes to use it correctly.
I've been looking at soundslides presentations since The State News at MSU started doing their own groundbreaking, home-grown versions, and one thing has disturbed me a ton: Most papers leave captions turned off. For example:
This or
this. They're nice, but they lack default access to a layer of information that would be easy to provide.
I had always thought that this was a flaw of the soundslides software until I saw
this. In the first two (and most other examples available), captions are hidden behind a button, if they're available at all. In the third, captions are automatically turned on.
Now I know that we have a choice (which, incidentally, is what convinced us to finally purchase the product).
We can try to be TV stations (we'll fail), or we can be the next step in
what was formerly known as print media, with a blend of images, sounds, text to provide information and links to even more information. Newspapers' strength has always been their ability to provide exactly as much context as a reader wants, whether he or she is browsing the headlines or reading a 48-inch story all the way through, complete with breakout boxes. Now it's up to us in the next generation to keep that context available instead of letting it wither.
Do you think we're up to the task?
Labels: career_advise, college_media, education, flash, journalism, maestro, media, multimedia, news, newspapers, online, story_planning, student_press, video
For photographers and page designers, there are quite a few Web sites on the Internet where you can build your own online portfolio.
Doing this will help your internship hunt tremendously. It's a low-cost way to organize and present your work. When you get an editor's attention, they can quickly see your work online instead of waiting for the mail, and losing focus of you in the meantime.
It's also an easy way to show off your work to family and friends who don't get to regularly see the print versions.
The most popular page design site is
News Page Designer, this is where all the professional designers have their portfolios.
One very nice up-and-comer is College Front Page. There both photographers and designers can build their own
CFP Personals Page, which shows off your work in a very nice revolving slideshow, complete with detailed captions you can type explaining your thoughts for each piece.
CFP Personals also is a bit more fun, it's sort of like the Facebook of journalism portfolio sites.
Photobucket is one of the more popular free sites for amateur photographers.
Regardless of where you build an online portfolio, you'll need to make your pages into much smaller jpg or pdf images. News Page Designer has a
tip sheet on how to do this.
Labels: applications, applying, career_advise, clips, college_media, editors, flash, internships, job hunt, media, multimedia, newspapers, online, portfolio, resumes, skills, snd
