Each Friday, SIWJ invites guest speakers to talk about the current state of the media industry, new media trends and give advice to our aspiring journalists. Read some highlights from the discussion and leave your thoughts or comments.
Spotlight: Jim Brady, Former Executive Editor for washingtonpost.com
Working at TheWashingtonPost.com from 2004-2009, Jim talked about his experience working in a top newsroom during the boom of the digital era. He talked about how the role of the reporter changed over those five years and that reporters used to have simple job. “They’d write articles, hand them over to me and then go home.” Now, he said you have to do more. Reporters are actively trying to get people to read their stuff and as a reporter you need be active and find readers.
Jim also talked about the role of bloggers in the journalism field, a popular topic among media gurus today. To him, the future is with niche content. He believes that hopefully niche blogs will start to find a way to generate profit.
Oh and don’t worry, he talked about Twitter too. “I was really anti-Twitter when it started. But, I’m getting used to it now.”
Advice
Brady said you don’t have to take the traditional path to get the job of your dreams. If you want to work in politics or land a job writing for the White House you can do that- if you are passionate about it and have good writing skills, you can do it!
Over the past week, he told us he had visited three different college classrooms and asked all the same question: “Does anyone subscribe to a daily newspaper?” and not one person, including students in our class, raised a hand. What do you think about that? do you subscribe to a news paper? How do you think this is effective the news industry?
Tell us your thoughts.
Photos By: http://www.flickr.com/photos/biblicone/ / CC BY-NC 2.0
