Posts Tagged ‘Events’

Career Advice for Gen Y Journalists

May 3rd, 2010 by Andrea Genevieve | 1 Comment » | posted in: Spring 2010

One of the main components to the SIWJ program is networking, making connections and learning from industry professionals through guest lectures. In April, we were thrilled to host Nisha Chittal, an amazing young women who is working in social media and setting a standard for Gen Y workers to follow. She visited our class to talk about getting your foot in the door at the job of your dreams and more importantly, personal branding.

I met Nisha, a very talented recent college grad, about a year ago through an organization called Social Media Club, here in Washington, DC. She’s actively involved in the social media sphere through her work with New Media Strategies, a prominent social media firm located in Northern Virginia, and personally through her politics blog and guest writing in other digital arenas.

Advice To Students

Her advice to students today? Secure your own personal brand.
First, she talked with students about the concept of personal branding, which is essential to journalism and media students today. As more and more publications and organizations begin to downsize, staff positions will become more competitive to secure. The best way to get ahead? Become someone recognizable. If organizations know you are skilled in X, have a passion in Y and have shown through your digital conversations that you are eager to join the communications field, you are going to have a better chance at landing your dream journalism job.

Set A Game Plan

Determine Your Goals
Grow Your Personality
Become Digitally Active
Start Something New or Unique
Be Authentic

Determing Your Goals

What do you hope to accomplish? Do you want to network and meet people? or are you more interested in finding a mentor? Perhaps you are looking to get a job or internship. Whatever it is, social media can get you to that goal. That is, if you have a game plan and a strategy to reach those goals.

Grow Your Personality and Become Digitally Active

Before you can build an empire, you need to know your strengths and weaknesses. When you do, start listening to what others are saying about that topic. Consider starting a blog, joining Twitter or commenting on websites. Start conversations with personalities you admire or link your blog to theirs, pick their brains and ask questions. As long as you are adding value to a conversation people will respect you and want to connect with you online. A caution from one Gen Yer to the next though, as part of Gen Y, students today have grown up using the internet, and as you build your brand its important to clean out your existing digital profiles and make them professional. (That means checking your Facebook privacy settings and removing photos of your freshman days!)Its a good idea to also take your brand offline, by going to events and joining organizations. Need a place to start? Nisha suggested the network Brazen Careerist and I second that advice.

Start Something New or Unique

Take a look at PRSarahEvans, who started the weekly Chat #JournChat on Twitter. Its a conversation that happens between journalists, PR professionals, educators and students each week. She built this from the ground up and now has famous guest hosts and participants. Take an idea like this and make it your own, for example, by starting a collaborative photoblog if you are interested in photography. Be different, be new and be unique.

Authenticity

The last piece of personal branding is all about being you. In an era when anyone and anything is goggleable its not worth acting or being fake online. Employers will find out. You want to present yourself as who you really are, allowing potential employers to get a glimpse of your personality and your professionalism.

Photo By: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ryan_rancatore/ / CC BY 2.0

First Week Of Spring 2010: Student Bootcamp

January 22nd, 2010 by Andrea Genevieve | no comments yet | posted in: Spring 2010

Bob Levey and Students at a Writing Seminar

You may or may not know, but the first week of the Semester in Washington Journalism Program is always a whirlwind! Students arrive in DC, aclimate themselves to the city and try to get used to things they may not have a their home school (like a metro subway station or CVS Pharmacy’s on every corner!)

This spring, students were especially busy as they participated in a week-long bootcamp to prepare them for a semester of challenging internships in the media industry. Each day they worked on a different area of media communication, from writing exercises, to learning video software, an introduction to Twitter and how to use a Flip camera.

On Friday our guest lecturer, former Washington Post metro columnist Bob Levey, took students through an intense reporting seminar where they discussed the challenge of using images from the internet. What do you think? Should reporters be able to take photos from Twitter or Facebook accounts? What are the ethical ramifications behind doing that?

He finished up the day by taking students on a walking tour through DC to see exactly where news happens in this busy town.

Looking for some more photos from bootcamp? Take a look at the SIWJ Spring 2010 Flickr photos.

Getting the Hang of Networking

October 26th, 2009 by Matt L. | 2 Comments » | posted in: Fall 2009

One of the most important aspects of having an internship and taking a first step into the professional world is networking. When it comes to getting a job, or getting sources and information, networking is something all professionals (especially journalists) have to do. This is a skill not easily taught, usually it comes naturally, but it can be learned.

First and foremost, you have to deal with any social awkwardness you might have. If you are unsure of how to talk to an individual, you can take the Larry King approach and ask questions pertaining to their field. Believe it or not, people usually like to talk about their work. Body language is also an important thing to be conscious about: have a firm handshake, try not to yawn, keep your eyebrows in an elevated position, try not to cross your arms, and other body language techniques.

Asking for business cards is always a must. Whether or not the contact has one is irrelevant– an individual’s email can easily be found on their company website, etc.– but the act of asking for a card will help the other person remember you. Once you have the contact information, it is best to send the person a response, usually by email, thanking them for coming to an event or speaking with you. It is also helpful to remember what the person said, and allude to a previous conversation you had with the contact.

Lastly, you should not try to network with someone who you have nothing in common with. Sure, there are people who will try to network with someone who they have no real interest in, but it will be obvious to the other party that you are merely using them for career advancements. If you network, do it with people you have a certain amount of connection with– they don’t have to be your best friend, but there must be some semblance of chemistry. Keeping up the contact past the initial, first response is crucial, and if you do not have anything interesting to share or talk about with the contact, then the relationship will wither away. Besides the points made earlier, the best way to network is to be friendly, open-minded, and to have an easy smile.

Photo By: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ooohoooh/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Newspapers: Being Killed or Committing Suicide

October 12th, 2009 by Neal G. | 1 Comment » | posted in: Fall 2009

Courtesy of Neal Goodson

Being a journalism major, I have heard for a long time that newspapers are dying and the world of journalism is changing drastically. When I got to DC, big surprise, I heard the exact same thing from big name people in the business. We keep hearing how new media and blogs are one of the main reasons for this fall of the newspaper. Debate rages on over people preferring to have the printed form, wanting to get down and dirty with the ink when they read their news vs getting the breaking news from blogs or Twitter that do not go through channels before distributing the information.

One thing I learned amidst the debate is that newspaper have a long standing history of having huge profit margins. It brings up one question to me: Are newspapers being killed by new media or are they committing suicide by having huge profit margins?

I did not think it was fair to look at newspaper in that manner, even though I heard the statement from a trusted source, so I went to forbes.com and did some research on the matter looking at two of the biggest newspapers in the country, Washington Post and NY Times, and two of the biggest private companies in the country, Wal-Mart and Dell.

The Post had a Gross Profit Margin of 54.6%, and the NY Times was similar with 57.8%. Guess what Wal-Mart and Dell’s gross profit margins are? 26.3% and 19.6%, respectively.

Those gross profit margins are for the last 12 months for each company, so that is not going back to when the Newspapers were dominating the news world. Are you surprised they have such huge margins yet complaining they are dying and having to cut back on resources? Can they not cut back on the huge profit margins to 30%, 25% and give more resources to their journalists who are complaining about having to work longer, harder, on more stories and feel like their depth and coverage of each story is suffering?

Small, niche papers are not having the huge problems to the same degree as the larger papers, from what I have heard. But then again they do not have the huge profit margins either. For them, it is more of a passion and love than a money making career.

Given a lot of people my age love to get their news online through many different outlets, for many different reasons. However, lets quit saying the new online outlets are killing the print newspaper until we know for a fact they are doing so. To me, it seems more like the newspapers are killing themselves. Much like a person that only eats steak and refuses to eat chicken or hamburger. Are you going to starve yourself to death if you can not get the steak or cave in and eat the hamburger? That is not anyone’s fault but your own if you do not lower your standards in order to stay alive.

10 Feet From Obama And I Met Helen Thomas

June 29th, 2009 by admin | no comments yet | posted in: Summer 2009

Before coming to DC I joked with my family and friends about how Barack Obama was my neighbor and because of my awesome basketball skills, he might invite me to shoot hoops at the White House (one can only dream)! Obviously the second part will never happen unless I grow another foot and become a basketball all-star like Dwight Howard. But… I am proud to say I stood within 10 feet of Obama at his 4th White House Press Conference.

Last Tuesday, Rebecca Cooper (the anchor I work with at WJLA/NewChannel 8) and I set out for the White House Rose Garden, but when we arrived we were informed we’d be crammed into the Press Briefing room (which isn’t as big as it looks) because of “humidity”. Reporters later said, “It was the most packed [they've] seen the briefing room since the Monica Lewinsky scandal during the Clinton administration.”

: Me and Helen Thomas

Rebecca told me before it began I had to do the “first-time reporters” thing. First I met HELEN THOMAS…. most well-known White House journalist.

Then I stood at the podium President Obama was about to speak from…

: Me At The Podium

Finally, I stood my ground at the front to hold a place for Rebecca to stand (seats reserved for daily press). I did this for about 2 hours (In the photo below I’m in pink, holding a newspaper along the wall.)

: Waiting Waiting Waiting

When the President walked in, the room was silent (with the exception of cameras going crazy).As Obama took the podium to address the US position on Iran, health care and the economy (as usual), I stood in awe of the president. I couldn’t pay attention to the words coming out of his mouth because I was in awe of how surreal this was. Finally I came to when he began to answer questions and actually learned a lot. Evidently I was on TV too!!!
This is my favorite moment of my internship so far and I’m so grateful to Rebecca for giving me the chance to go. I’m still hoping to take on the President in a 1 on 1 challenge though. So President Obama if you’re reading this… call me and we’ll set the time and place!

The Best Thing That Has Ever Happened To Me

March 27th, 2009 by admin | no comments yet | posted in: Spring 2009

On Wednesday, March 25, I learned about President Obama’s virtual town hall meeting while I was at work at NBC News Channel. I liked the idea and knew that if I asked a question, it would be about making college more affordable. My two best friends, Kristen and Malorie, were in town during Kent State’s spring break, and when I got home from work, I asked them if they wanted to ask a question and submit it to the website. They kind of laughed it off, but around 6:00 p.m., I asked them again, and we began writing a question and recorded this video with my digital camera while sitting on Jenny’s bed:

After that, we continued with our evening. I posted the link on my facebook, and the next day at work, a producer watched the video and forwarded the link to a few more people in our office. My co-workers said they liked it and thought it was a good question.

During President Obama’s town hall, I was being filmed because I was a young person watching it on the computer while texting my friends. A reporter jokingly said, “When he answers her question, get ready to run so you can get her reaction on camera.” I had spent a lot of time going through the website voting on questions, so I immediately recognized two top questions that both received over 6,000 yes votes. Our video got 6 yes votes and 12 no votes, so I knew our question would not get played.

I began eating my peanut butter and jelly sandwich while watching the town hall meeting on my computer. I then heard one of our reporters and a producer yelling. They were watching the town hall on the NBC feed, so it was several seconds ahead of the internet broadcast. I heard the moderator of the town hall say “Alex from Ohio”, then I saw our video come on the screen.

I began shaking, and I couldn’t breathe. One of our photographers ran towards me, and other people in our office began looking at me and watching me freak out. It was such a meaningful and powerful moment in my life; something I don’t think I’ve ever experienced.

My reaction was caught on camera, and a reporter compared me to the announcement of Miss America. I was in total shock… I still can’t wrap my head around the idea that the President of the United States watched my silly video and looked at me and talked to me and listened to me and answered me.

The best part was after our video was played, President Obama said, “That was pretty well done!” The audience laughed and clapped.

The “Open for Questions” forum received over 104,000 questions. President Obama answered 4 typed questions and 2 video questions – including mine. The remainder of the questions were asked by people in the audience.

At work, the D.C. NBC News Channel package included me. It had my reaction and also a few good sound bites from Secretary Geithner and President Obama. The package ended with “Geither’s goal: blahblah. Obama’s goal: blahblah. Alex’s goal: taking a breath.”

Our office is shared with a reporter from the Columbus Dispatch, a reporter/photographer for Ohio News Network, and Telemundo, and they all wanted to include me in their pieces that day. Our managing editor contacted the person in charge of NBC stations in Ohio to inform them of what had happened. A little blurb about me was on the 11 o’clock news on the NBC Cleveland affiliate station, WKYC. Here are a few appearances of our video in the news:

CNN (We’re at 1:15)

ABC World News

The Columbus Dispatch

I would like to thank Kristen, Malorie, my co-workers at NBC News Channel, everyone at the Semester in Washington Journalism program, my parents, and the White House staffer who first viewed our video and liked it.

You all made yesterday the best day of my life.

Inauguration Day 2009: A Play by Play

January 21st, 2009 by admin | no comments yet | posted in: Spring 2009

Events of January 20, 2009

12:00 am: Go to bed
1:24 am: Fire alarm goes off in dorm; whole building is evacuated and all occupants stand outside for 30 minutes while they check for the “fire”
2:00 am: Defrost and return to bed.

4:55 am: Regular alarm goes off. Time to get dressed and grab video camera to head out.

5:15 am: meet SIW friends, Jen and Laura, to have a quick breakfast and head to the parade route.

5:45 am: Walk out of dorm and cheer because we’re so excited! We followed the crowd on the streets who were all walking toward the mall. We didn’t really want to go to the mall, but all the streets were blocked off, so we kinda ended up at the Washington monument by accident. Also: I ran into one of my HS friends’ dad on the way. What are the chances?!

6:00 am: By now we’re getting frustrated that we’re still walking near the mall and have been told by 3 separate officials to go a different way to get to a parade checkpoint, all three of which were dead ends.

7:00 am: Finally find a parade route entrance. We’re about 200 yards from the security checkpoint. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people at one time in my life. Ever. Except for the few complainers in the crowd (about the weather, bad direction-giving, confused volunteers, crabby secret service agents, etc.) everyone is really happy, excited, and randomly shouting Obama! or singing/cheering, etc.

8:00 am: It’s light out now. We walked about 100 yards closer to the checkpoint at 10th and Constitution but are definitely not going anywhere anytime soon. Amos assigned a 3-minute film about the Inauguration for class, so we start shooting quick snippets of what we’re up to. Spirits are still relatively high although we’re getting realllllly cold.

8:30 am: Strongly consider returning home due to the weather and the fact that we’ve barely moved closer to the checkpoint in the last hour. We probably would have except for the fact that a.) my mom would have been so disappointed! b.) we had no idea how to get home due to all the crowds/road-closures, c.) Jen has to write an article for her Internship about the Salt Lake City marching band (this was our most persuasive reason, I’d say).

9:00 am: Things start to get miserable and we still haven’t moved. The three of us start singing patriotic songs, and then move onto hymns, motown, camp songs, other misc. church songs, Disney classics, you name it. We were taking requests from the crowd in no time. They were pretty shy about joining along, but we had a few additional choir members from time to time.

10:00 am: The singing has made the time pass amazingly! Our spirits are raised and so are those of the people around us (we’d like to think, anyway). Unfortunately, we still haven’t moved and we receive news that the checkpoint at 12th and Constitution is nearly empty.

10:05 am: We RUN to 12th and Constitution.

10:15 am: Get in line amongst new checkpoint crowd (yes, there’s a crowd. We learn the hard way that “nearly empty” means different things when we’re talking Inauguration day.) We meet our new standing-neighbors, include them in our video, and discover that this crowd is packed so tightly that we can purposefully fall in any direction and not even move! Great fun!

10:16 am: We’ve got a vast majority of the new checkpoint crowd joining us in The Star Spangled Banner and God Bless America. We like this new crowd!

11:15 am: We’re in!!!!! Very cold, but very happy!! Parade starts in 3.5 hours…. what to do?

11:20 am: We begin interviewing parade-goers about their Inauguration day experiences. We ask: Where are you from, What are your least and most favorite parts of the day, and, If you could ask Obama one question, what would it be? (stay tuned for link to the video!) It was very interesting to hear everyone’s varying answers.

12:00 pm: We stake out a spot on the bleachers (yes, we get to sit for the first time!) and realize that we’ve somehow made it into a tickets-only area where they aren’t letting in anymore parade-goers. Although this is very exciting news, we’re getting QUITE chilly again.

12:05 pm: We begin, along with 90% of the nearby crowd, to dance to the music being played over the loud speakers in order to keep warm! Great fun!

12:20 pm: Obama is sworn in! Cheering, yelling, rejoicing, and dancing everywhere! Everyone is SO happy! We sit down to listen to his speech, which is great and distracts us from the fact that our toes are turning purple and may fall off. The whole of the parade route goes eerily silent while listening to what he has to say.

12:45 pm: Return to dancing and notice the police standing nearby making fun of us. This does not bother us.

1:00 pm: Trying to keep busy. We’re not allowed to leave our “exclusive” section so we don’t loose our spots, but this means no bathrooms, food, warmth, or change of scenery!

2:00 pm: All hapiness is gone. Extremely cold and contemplating leaving, except for Jen’s damn story. humph.

2:30 pm: Parade was SUPPOSED to start now…. we get a clue that this isn’t happening anytime soon when they start sharing inauguration trivia over the loud speakers.

3:05 pm: I give up and leave my “exclusive” spot to go inside (which is outside the security checkpoint). I know what you’re thinking. Yes, I did wait for over 9 hours to go inside RIGHT before the start of the parade.

3:10 pm: I’ve gone to the bathroom and am watching the parade on a giant screen with a decent crowd inside the Historic Post Office food court eating a delicious gyro and french fries.

3:15 pm: Parade has begun, but has not yet reached our previous standing post. I notice Jen and Laura inside getting hot chocolate, also having exited the secure parade area. We watched the start of the parade inside and cheer along with those outside while we defrost. I decide to head back because I cannot get the idea of sweatpants, sweatshirt, a couch, a chai, and CNN out of my mind (where I am right now!)

So, I left Jen and Laura there and took the metro (no small task due to the crowds… but it was helped by the fact that I found a metro ticket worth $13.50 on the ground!). I’ll be very interested to hear if they made it back out for the Salt Lake marching band…. the thought of being back out there gives me nightmares, but they seemed determined! I’m so impressed!

Even though this was a long, cold, and draining day that didn’t result in me seeing the parade, I don’t consider it a failure. This whole entire city looks like Mifflin street in Madison after the block party, only all the beer paraphernalia is replaced with hand-warmer wrappers, Styrofoam coffee cups, Obama trinkets, and Inauguration information guides. It was AMAZING to be among all the “party people” this morning and this weekend who have come from all over the US and world to welcome Obama into the White House. It sounds weird, but one of the coolest parts of the day to me was to observe all the people who were dancing to do ANYTHING to stay warm, or peeing in satellites with no toilet paper, or standing in line for hours and waking up at 5 am all to show Obama that they are overjoyed and inspired that he is our new president.

Basically, even though the people who stood on the mall or waited along the parade route were certainly uncomfortable, they we’re still astonishingly excited and cheered louder than ever when Obama walked (!) past. This morning was a perfect combination of an incredible and horrible experience. I’m so glad I was here to experience it, but I will NEVER do it again!

I’ll post our video once we make it, and I’m going to go back to watching the parade while I’m nice and warm on the couch!

Election Night 2009 in DC

November 5th, 2008 by admin | no comments yet | posted in: Fall 2008

Oh my! Election Night was AWESOME here!

I spent the first part of the night working at POTUS (xm radio.) I was in charge of coloring in the map, and at one point I went into the bathroom and I had blue and red marker all over my face… how embarrassing! But I watched the AP reports and colored in the states when AP ‘called’ the state, because other channels were calling different states at diff

erent times. We were going by what AP said. They called the election around 11pm eastern time. I stayed for Obama’s victory speech and then one of the other interns drove me home.

We drove by the White House were there were crowds and crowds of people cheering and singing and dancing and screaming it was AWESOME! I got home and I made my roommate walk with me to the White House. It was so amazing. There were thousands of people dancing in the middle of the street. Cars were stopped and people were hanging out the windows with their music turned up. There were these three guys playing trumpets and a trombone and people were singing along. It may have been one of, if not THE best experience I’ve had here.I know that this may be cheesy. But I am so proud to be America. To be here. To be involved with this election and to have voted. It was a historical event, in a historical place and there’s no where better to have been than Washington DC.