Ryan Sholin was awesome enough to invite me to a Skype interview that was featured on PBS’s IdeaLab about tonight’s CollegeJourn.com chat (8-11 p.m. EST). If you don’t know about it, click here, then join us here. But if you can’t make it, read the recap that will inevitably be posted at CollegeJourn.com, and watch this here:

It was a fun interview, but I tend to ramble when I speak, so let me emphasize a couple of points:

• Yes, j-schools should be weeding out students who aren’t going to cut it. There are simply more journalism students than jobs. Perhaps we should stop coddling the tagalongs. And perhaps deficiencies in the journalism curriculum help sort out the people who are there to get a degree only, and those self-starters who see something they need to learn and will go out and learn it, whether or not there’s a class offered.
• Fancy modern tools are great. Telling stories is better. I will stand by that and plan to emphasize that in tonight’s chat.
• By show of hands, how many students know they can directly approach whoever sets the curriculum at their school?
• I want to give proper credit to my own school at San Jose State University. During many weeks of the CollegeJourn chats, I realize that I am lucky to have professors who at least acknowledge the need for new media. There’s still room for improvement, there always is. But most of my concerns about the future of journalism are not aimed towards the SJSU faculty. They’re doing the best they can.

I did want to clarify one point: I said print is dying. That’s not the full truth. The INFLUENCE of print is diminishing and the demand for print-side jobs are on their way out, which makes it even more important to shake old-school professors awake from their belief that they should teach nothing but print skills. However, there are still niches available for print, so it should still be included as one of many things students should learn.

Here’s some specific contexts where print still makes a lot of sense, off the top of my head:

• Free publications, particularly in low-income neighborhoods or downtown areas.
• Coffee shops.
• Waiting rooms.
• In-depth weeklies or monthlies, publishing articles too long to be read comfortably at a computer. That is, until e-readers become as commonplace as books, which still has a long way to go.
• Public transportation – planes, trains and buses. Again, until e-readers become ubiquitous.
• College campuses.

Yes, I said college campuses.

Print makes sense there because of its small geographic circulation (the campus and its neighborhood), the advertising revenue and, perhaps most importantly, its lack of competition for attention.

Look at the way students pick up the paper. They walk to class, minding their own business, perhaps thinking about how boring their next teacher is going to be. Then they see a newsstand and remember that yes, there is a campus publication, and they pick it up, just in case class is going to be as boring as they feared.

If the publication was primarily online, what would compel any student to go there first instead of Facebook or MySpace? The only chance you have of getting read online is to post an article that went viral in other classmates’ Facebook news feed.

Another argument for print, which comes from a surprising source: I stumbled on this recap from a student Editors’ Day conference in Southern California (full disclosure: I participated heavily in JACC when I was editor in chief at College of the Sequoias). I was completely surprised to see one of the top complaints from students is that instructors push new media too hard.

It’s the students who still want to focus on print. And why not? Anyone can post a blog; not everyone appears in print. And because print still makes the most sense for college campuses, news staffs are already stretched thin just trying to put out a quality newspaper.

Students want to produce in print, and students want to read print. Most of the money is made from print. So what’s the problem?

The problem is after graduation.

Not every journalism student is going to be employed in print niches. That’s why it’s so important to diversify. But because print still makes sense on the college campus, how can we ask them to do more video, audio, blogging and multimedia for a publication that they 1) typically aren’t paid to work for and 2) may only be taking as a requirement for graduation?

I think we better figure out a way, and quick.

We’re going to try and limit (or carefully control) the “print is dead” discussion at tonight’s CollegeJourn.com chat. But as long as it’s relevant to the subject, we will carefully tread the subject. It’s is the main reason why I am blogging here: to get it out of my system and be fresh and ready.

So join us. 8-11 p.m. EST.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: This week I played host to a weekly chat about college journalism that originated on Twitter using the hashtag #collegejourn. However, this was the first week we moved away from Twitter to a more IRC-style chat. And due to technical difficulties, it ended up here at the last minute. Read the whole log here. but this is probably not a permanent link. It will be archived for collegejourn.com in the future.  The transcript is now here. We have moved the chatroom to collegejourn.com.  Join us every Sunday from 8-11 p.m. EST!]

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Well, thanks to a couple of mentions from Ryan Sholin (@ryansholin), Jeff Jarvis (@JeffJarvis) and a flattering tweet from Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu), this humble little blog has made a small blip on the radar. A million thanks.

If you haven’t read part one of these resolutions for journalism students, start here. And take good notes. Because we move on to the second overall goal, which applies to just about everyone in any profession, not just journalism students:

Network like mad

• First things first: Make people remember your name.
  Much of this entire list are specific ways to make this happen, but here’s the gist: You want people to know your name like they know Anderson Cooper’s (@andersoncooper). So start using your real name online. Hammer on your specialty and make that shine through. Make yourself a brand. The personal brand was the topic of discussion over at Tomorrow’s News, Tomorrow’s Journalists, (@TNTJ) which is well worth the read. EDIT: Jay Rosen sent me this excellent post from Sarah Lacy, who knows a thing or two about personal brands in journalism. Andy Dickinson (@digidickinson), who teaches at the University of Central Lancashire, also touches on the rise of individual brands here. And the very-non-journalist self-proclaimed guru Dan Schawbel (@danschawbel) likes to waffle on about this (sometimes annoyingly so, but the information is still there). I took my own advice between my last post and this one and renamed my blog from “Everyday Journalism” to just “Suzanne Yada.” Many other bullet points on this list are more specific how-tos that fall under this “branding” umbrella, like the next one:
     
• Consistency is everything.
  Be consistent through your writing style, your follow-ups with your sources, the way you meet deadlines and in your social networking presence. That all reflects on your reputation, and it’s your most valuable asset. That’s your “brand.” Have people who visit your blog, see your resume or look at your portfolio recognize it’s from you. You can start with something simple: Megan Taylor (@selfmadepsyche) says here that she reuses the same colors with everything she does online. And David Cohn (@digidave) of Spot.Us does it best with his five personalities image and use of the same nickname across all his social networking sites. Student Adam Hemphill (@ahemphill) says here succinctly: “If you’re not consistent with your message, potential employers or collaborators will not know what to make of you. Think about these questions: What is your goal? What are your most valuable skills? What do you want to affect? Consider these things and develop a plan for presenting yourself consistently, whether you’re answering interview questions or tying Web sites together visually.”  
    
• Get professional, not stodgy.
  Yes, you do need to create an image that says that you know your stuff and you mean business. So take down the frat party pics from Facebook and change your email from whatchutalkinboutwillis85@aol.com. Google your name and make sure everything you find is something you want an employer to see. But Jesus Christ, don’t take out ALL your personality, people! News does not have to be dry, and neither do you. You’re not a robot, and sources are less intimidated talking to a human than they are talking to a, gasp, journalist. Yes, still have expertise, but be lively, be engaging, be intelligent, be funny, even be a smart-ass if it calls for it. Christopher Wink (@christopherwink) a freelance journalist in Philadelphia, says that adopting a clear voice in your writing style is all part of your brand. But you do have to learn to let your style show through without being opinionated or skewing your reporting. (Keeping your writing style intact through the editing process is another story altogether.) 
      
• Get your domain name. 
  If you don’t already have “your name dot com,” do it yesterday. It’s only $10 a year or so, sometimes even less. Post your resume, portfolio and clips on it at the very least, and if you’re adopting the very first resolution to Write Like Crazy, post your blog there too. That way, when that potential internship calls you back and asks for clips, you don’t have to keep them waiting for an e-mail. Just tell them your URL.
     
• Start collecting potential sources.
  It’s never too early to start filling out your little black book with phone numbers. Reporting is ALL about connections. Who can you call 30 minutes from deadline to verify something (other than trying Help A Reporter Out [@skydiver] )? If a source knows who you are, they’re much more likely to help you. And now’s the time to initiate those connections. Whether you’re the campus crime reporter or a wannabe food critic, make your name known now so you don’t have an uphill battle to climb later (say, 30 minutes from deadline). And keep a backup of that little black book (or BlackBerry database)! Keep it updated, organized and ON YOUR PERSON at all times. 
       
• Make Twitter your friend.
  Notice that I’ve posted a (@username) after every single person I mentioned in this post from beginning to end? Those are their Twitter names. It is not a coincidence everyone has them, and I didn’t exclude anyone just because they didn’t have a Twitter account. If you are a journalist and don’t have one: Fix. That. Problem. Right. Now. Use your Twitter to network with both other journalists AND potential sources. Start on the journalist side of things by following everyone I’ve referenced in this post (especially those in the next bullet point). Also follow 10,000 Words’ top 10 journalists on Twitter, or start with this list I posted on Twentysomething Journalist. Then add your name to this wiki of Twittering journalists and see who else you would like to follow there. If you’re really ambitious, add the people who follow @JournalistTweet, and follow them yourself. To hunt down potential sources, go to the advanced Twitter search and look up people tweeting about your beat subject in your area. Poynter (@poynter) gives basic journalism Twitter tips here. Steve Yelvington (@yelvington) explains more thoroughly here. Shawn Smith (@shawnsmith) gives a huge list of Twitter tools here. 
       
• Read and follow other journalists’ blogs and Twitters. 
  Find the good journalism-related bloggers out there and read them religiously. Fill up your RSS reader (like Google Reader) with their work. Give ‘em feedback, ask questions. Link to them, quote them, share their posts, reply to their tweets and they just might return the favor. Want to get started? I’ve freshened up my blog roll on the right column of this Web site with some high quality folks, but if that’s too much to follow, then start with these. These are all the names that are at the top of my mind right now — playing into the importance that your personal brand makes:
     
  YOUNG JOURNALISTS:
  Greg Linch (@greglinch)
  Emily Kostic (@emilykostic)
  Daniel Bachhuber (@danielbachhuber) 
  Megan Taylor (@selfmadepsyche) 
  Meranda Watling (@meranduh) 
  Daniel Victor (@bydanielvictor) 
  Anyone else involved with CoPress (@CoPress) 
  Anyone else involved with Tomorrow’s News Tomorrow’s Journalists (@TNTJ)
     
  SEASONED HEAVY HITTERS:
  Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu)
  Jeff Jarvis (@jeffjarvis)
  Patrick Thornton (@jiconoclast)
  Ryan Sholin (@ryansholin) 
  Chrys Wu (@MacDivaONA)
  David Cohn (@digidave) 
  Mindy McAdams (@macloo)
  Steve Yelvington (@yelvington)
     
• Boost the link economy.
  The exchange of links makes the Internet go ’round. So do it. When you come across a blog post or an article you like, save it and spread it. Write a blog post about it. Share it on Delicious, Twitter, Publish2, Google Reader, Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon. Make it second-nature. That’s how you meet people, make contacts and build a name for yourself. But it’s more than that: Jeff Jarvis  (@jeffjarvis)  harps on linking as a journalistic skill too. When you are immersed in your beat, instead of viewing other news outlets as competition, he suggests you do what you do best, then link to the rest. If your beat has an online presence (like those at BeatBlogging.org), reference as much information on your subject as possible. Having a robust collection of links about your subject sets you apart as a well-read and connected source of information of your beat.
            
• Join online networks.
  Get on LinkedIn right away. Jump in on blog rings, like TNTJ or the Carnival of Journalism (even if unofficially). Join Facebook groups like Reinvent Newspapers , CollegeJourn or the aptly named Journalists and Facebook. Find forums like Twentysomething Journalist. Sign up for Ning sites like Wired Journalists, Visual Editors, The Modern Journalist and The Next Newsroom Project. Join Twitter groups like Change Journalism, #journchat or #collegejourn. Your name will be known as long as you have good ideas and discussions behind it. As an extra bonus, having a presence on all of these gives you wonderfully high rankings in Google.
       
• Join associations.
  Part of me wants to tell you to join as many journalism-related associations as possible. The other part thinks it’s best to pick one or two and go hog-wild with those. Since most associations worth listing on your resume cost money, I am going with the latter option and I’m saving up my pennies for a membership of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Society of News Design this year. (Be sure to check if your school has chapters and what the price of membership is.) It doesn’t matter if you’re a multimedia reporter, a photojournalist, a copy editor or an investigative reporter; are interested in religious, environmental, health care or GLBT issues; or you come from a black, Asian or Hispanic background. There’s an association for you. Once you find one, network like hell with the other members, and attend any and all meetings associated with it. If you can’t find an association that interests you on any of these links here, just Google your interest plus the words “journalists association” (without the quotes). You might be surprised.
       
• Get business cards. 
  I’m serious. Design them, print them, carry them everywhere, especially to those association events mentioned above. Vista Print will give you 250 for free, but I personally think the tagline they add to the back of the cards makes you look cheap. (Full disclosure time: My family owns a handful of print shops in Central California, so I am naturally going to encourage you to support your local printer. ;) ) EDIT: Gina Chen (@bloggingmom67) commented here to add: “Be sure all your contact info is on your business card. (This is more advice for folks who have been employed for a while and never thought of putting their blog address on their card. Do it.)”
        
• Get rid of the business cards. 
  You are not going through the trouble of getting business cards just to have a stack of them in your closet. SCHMOOZE. Pass them out. I’ve given mine out in formal networking settings, to people I’ve interviewed for stories, I’ve even handed them out to a few people on a bus stuck in traffic. You’re not selling your soul here, you’re letting people know who you are and how you can help them, either in telling their stories or being the best damn hire they’ll ever make.  
       
• Hone your elevator pitch. 
  Sum up your personality and career goals in 10 seconds or less, and repeat it over and over in your head. It’s called the elevator pitch because you never know who you might bump into in an elevator, and you have to be prepared. Memorize your pitch so the exact wording tumbles out of your mouth the next time you bump into Ms. Executive Editor in the checkout line. (Career marketing consultant Michelle Dumas [@michelledumas] posts a more thorough look here. Or try the 15-second pitch generator here.) Once you spill your spiel, hand them your professional business card with your URL on it, and they have an instant ticket to your whole portfolio of work.   
       
• Never underestimate the power of lunch. 
  Free food is just one of the stuff journalists like. Feeling like a mentor to a fresh-faced journo student is another. When Sean Webby (@seanwebby), a San Jose Mercury News reporter, came and spoke to my magazine writing class, I had the guts to hand him my card after class. He handed me his. I e-mailed him later and offered to buy lunch. He e-mailed back with an even better offer: a two-hour tagalong on his beat. That experience was as phenomenal as it was educational. And it wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t do this next item:   
       
• Follow up. With everything. Yes, even that.
  With everyone who hears your elevator pitch, with every business card you collect, with every e-mail exchange that happened today or the one that happened six months ago, follow up. When someone links to you, thank them. When someone writes something of interest, leave a comment. When someone retweets something you said, respond. When in doubt, follow up. Also, invest in some thank-you cards. Actual, paper-based ones. Send them to the internships that called you back, the professionals that speak in your class, your teachers, your student editors at school publications, and most importantly, after every interview or callback from potential employers. Have the fact that you follow up on everything become a part of your “brand.”

Now, I fully realize the title of this post is sorely misleading. This isn’t just for journalism students at all. This is for everyone wanting to develop their career, whether you’re simply looking for another job in the field or an entrepreneur wanting to expand your startup’s network. But there’s a reason I’m specifying journalism students: We don’t think about this stuff nearly enough. We don’t go to the campus job center or read career advice blogs. We have our heads stuck in the projects that are right in front of us. So it’s my hope that a post with the words “journalism students” in the title is more likely to be read. 

Because now is the best time to make a name for yourself. Do it before this so-called real world comes by and hits you in the face. Do it now, while you have the flexible schedule and the energy.

Set specific goals, right now. Take a look at both these blog posts and choose a couple of these items you really want to focus on this year. But only a couple at a time! Then tailor them to your situation. Give them deadlines, timelines and other specifics, such as “I will order and pass out 250 business cards by March,” “I will study PHP one hour a weekend,” “I will blog once a week for 10 weeks” or “I will pitch three stories to magazines by May.”

In fact, just close this browser. Shut off the Internet. Go make your own personalized list of resolutions, and do them. Now.

EDIT 1: Jay Rosen just sent me this link on personal branding, which I added to goal #1.
EDIT 2: Stumbled upon Will Sullivan’s (@journerdism) fantastic series on job hunting and career advice. They are must-reads. 32 real world advice to journalism grads. How to network like a ninja. 94 journo job-seeking resources. Freelance and entrepreneur tips. Also, read his advice to college students here.
EDIT 3: Meranda Watling (@meranduh) wrote a lovely post in response to mine, putting all of these tips into a professional perspective.
EDIT 4: A newly-formed Twitter and Facebook group, #CollegeJourn, has been added to the “Join online networks” portion of this post.
EDIT 5: Jim McBee posts a reply here from the perspective of a “grizzled, cynical, ex-journalist.” He warns against killing yourself for the news business. Worth reading and considering before you dive into these resolutions.
EDIT 6: I am hearing from quite a handful of teachers and students who are using this blog post in their classrooms. That’s fantastic! Please leave a comment with your school and location (and URL if you have one!); I and other students would like to know who we all are so we can connect with each other.
EDIT 7: I added a line to “Get business cards” to include Gina Chen’s comment here.

If I only had two career resolutions for 2009, it would be these:

1) Become invaluable, and
2) Network like mad.

Every goal I can think of would fall under these two categories, and it works with any career. But since I am currently a journalism student, I naturally have a lot of specifics for those of us in the same boat.

But these resolutions are more than just some j-school student spouting off edicts from on high. Many extraordinary people in the profession and in the schools have submitted their advice via e-mail, Twitter or Facebook. Also, having been a copy editor for three years myself before returning to school, I have seen glimpses of the other side of the equation, and I can see exactly what it takes to be really, really good at your job. And in the interest of full disclosure, I still have plenty of work to do — many of these goals are for me, too.

So with that, here’s what every journalism student should aspire to accomplish in 2009, in a two-part blog post (EDIT: Part II is now up here.):

Become invaluable

• Write like crazy.
  If you’re not composing pieces for student media, write anyway. Write in your blog (start a free one here), write for a local blog, or even keep a private journal and write every day in it. This is my big resolution right here. I have to force myself to get into the writing habit. Digital media project director and former photojournalist Anne-Marie McReynolds (Twitter: @amcreynolds), gives some good ideas via Twitter: “Collaborate w/citizens, launch hyper-local blog, pitch investigative stories to Spot.Us.” (See the “Start pitching stories to publications” for an explanation of Spot.Us.) 
       
• Produce multimedia like crazy.
  Robert Courtemanche (Twitter: @teach_j), a journalism/media teacher in Houston, Texas, says this: “Learn EVERYTHING you can about the web. Learn how to make good visuals. Learn video editing. Learn to shoot video/photos.” A perfect starting point is KQED’s Digital Storytelling Initiative, which you can download for free and includes audio/visual tutorials and advice on crafting a good story. Also, Brandon Mendelson (Twitter: @BJMendelson), a graduate student at UAlbany, says, “Journalism students should learn the basics behind web coding (php,ect.); Others in the newsroom will depend on this knowledge.” A great resource to learn anything computer-related is Lynda.com, which for $25 a month will offer you video tutorials on just about ANY piece of software you can imagine. I have heard rave reviews and will be using it this semester to learn Flash, another skill that employers are clamoring for. EDIT: Alfred Hermida (@hermida) of PBS’s excellent MediaShift blog interviews several industry professionals about what they’re looking for in a journalism grad. All of them say that in addition to the basic core of journalism skills, you need new media skills.
       
• Meet your deadlines.
  Every journalist I know is a natural procrastinator, including me. That’s why we thrive on tight deadlines. But you won’t thrive in the industry if you don’t meet them. This is my confession: while I meet deadlines, I don’t pace myself well AT ALL. It’s always a last-minute rush, and quality suffers as a result. This is my other huge goal for 2009: Start on an assignment either the moment I get it, or within the hour.
       
• Grow some cojones.
  Let me level with you. The world doesn’t need more music reviewers or opinion spouters. The world needs more people willing to ask tough questions. The first step to reversing journalism’s tarnished image is to have the guts to dig for information the public can’t easily find themselves, and be an advocate of unbiased, straightforward truth. If you can show depth and research with your reporting clips, if you can show you can ask the tough questions and be more than just a parrot for your interviewee, if you can fact-check the living snot out of your articles, you will rise to the top of the crop. EDIT:  Alan Kellogg commented here with an important addendum: “Have the courage to acknowledge and correct your mistakes. You will make mistakes. When you err tell people you erred, where you erred, and fix your error. Your audience will think better of you.”
        
• Dig for better stories beneath the surface.
  Former CNN anchor Miles O’Brien (Twitter: @milesobrien) was kind enough to send me a short yet complex New Year’s resolution: “I resolve to stay relevant amid tectonic changes.” The world may seem to be crashing in on journalism, but if we don’t stay relevant to people and their information needs, we might as well dig an early grave. That also means finding different, deeper angles to the same old stories and providing context to the public. Alex Kellner (Twitter: @kellnaaah), a political blogger and Master’s student at GWU, says it best: “Bring intellectual curiosity to the profession of journalism, don’t just write about what MSM and Drudge tell you is a story.”
         
• Know AP or Chicago style, and LURN TOO SPEL.
  You can’t aspire to be a cabinetmaker and not know how to use the tools. Likewise, you can’t write without knowing the mechanics of English and the standard rules of media style. Make it a goal to plow through your stylebook page by page, and if you’ve already done that, do it again to refresh yourself. That’s my goal. The AP Stylebook is used more widely and is available in a searchable online format here for $25 a year (a fair price!), and the Chicago Style is also available online here for $30 a year. Or buy a hard copy and a good old-fashioned highlighter.
        
• Be absolutely, 100% ethical.
  In my emails to my San Jose State professors, this one was the common thread. Professor Tom Ulrich says he has the same simple resolutions every year: “Meet all deadlines. Write bullet-proof copy. Abide by the ethics of the profession. Sounds quaint, but your reputation means everything.” Read, reread, and re-reread SPJ’s Code of Ethics. Then use it to decide beforehand what you would do in certain situations before those situations even arise.
        
• Treat all your school assignments like your next ticket to a job.
  Because they are. All of them. Even reading that stupid textbook, the one the teacher never teaches from. Don’t tailor your homework assignments and projects to meet the teacher’s standards; tailor them to a potential employer’s standards. I wish I took some of my school projects more seriously, because I would have loved to have shown them off if they were done to a higher quality than just the instructor’s expectations. The more material you can flaunt in your portfolio, the better.
        
• Apply, apply, apply.
  You can’t get internships or scholarships if you never apply. Find internships at Journalism Jobs, ASNE for newspapers, Ed2010 for magazines, on this list, through your school and via your instructors. Apply for scholarships through FastWeb, CubReporters.org, American Journalism Review, and again, through your school and via your instructors. Make a goal to submit a predetermined amount of applications in a predetermined amount of time.
        
• Talk with your teachers about something other than class.
  Psst, here’s a secret: Teachers are itching to swap real-world stories and insider information with students, but not nearly enough students ask. If you can’t make their posted office hours, take them out to lunch. They’re also a gold mine of connections, and they really, actually, DO want you to use them.
        
• Start pitching stories to publications.
  Just start. See where it gets you. It could get you 100 rejection letters, but you might break through somewhere. Make this the year you got published and — *gasp* — got paid for it. Look at Writer’s Market, select the publications for which you want to write, learn how to write a good query and start pitching stories. If you can’t find the book at your library or bookstore, subscribe to the online version. It’s searchable, current and affordable. Also, if you live in the San Francisco area and have an idea for an in-depth report, you may want to consider Spot.Us, a Web site where you can pitch a story idea and ask the public to fund your freelance wages. It’s a bit harder for students to convince the public that they are qualified enough to handle a story worthy of their money, but the platform is there. EDIT: Came across a great blog post from Ben LaMothe (@benlamothe) explaining why writing for the student paper may just not be enough anymore. 
         
• Take a business course, or five.
  It’s not easy, and I hate math, but I’m minoring in business for several good reasons. I don’t need to tell you this economy is in the dumps and this profession is in trouble. Adam Hemphill (Twitter: @ahemphill), a graduate student in Washington D.C. and a team member of CoPress, says, “Journalism students should resolve to make their news organizations self-sustaining.” Your knowledge of the world of business will help you tenfold in landing a job — or creating your own (see next item). If you’re not able to take courses at your university, try the community college nearest you, or contact the Small Business Administration. They often give free seminars across the nation and are ready to give you advice. Also dig up information on the business side of journalism: I keep tabs on Poynter’s Biz Blog, Reflections of a Newsosaur, Newspaper Next and Monday Note as well as devouring the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s annual State of the Media report. (I also keep a few StumbleUpon and Delicious bookmarks tagged “business of news” and am working on a series of blog posts.) EDIT: Just found this excellent blog, The Media Business, written by Robert Picard. ANOTHER EDIT: Now Poynter has another must-read business blog, NewsPay.
        
• Be prepared to go entrepreneurial.
  Entrepreneurial journalism is something every single j-school graduate should be prepared to jump into. MediaShift agrees, as does Eat Sleep Publish. The Online Journalism Review has a number of great posts on it here, not the least of which is this one. Don’t attempt this until you 1) network like mad (see tomorrow’s blog post) and 2) learn how to talk business (see goal above).
          
• Learn something that doesn’t earn school units.
  Do you feel like your j-school not teaching you what you need to know? With impossible budgets and a crazy bureaucracy to battle, they try to do the best they can, but they can only do so much for you. Your education is in your hands, so take command of it. I already mentioned Lynda.com for learning multimedia software, something every journalism student should know. Another fantastic resource is NewsU to relearn (or learn) everything you only skimmed over in class. On top of that, if you want to be a reporter and your school shamefully doesn’t require a minor or academic focus outside of the journalism department, dive into a second subject of interest that you want to cover as a reporter. Environment? Politics? Schools? Crime? Business? International relations? Make it a goal this year to do some research online and read books (remember books?) on the subject. Which reminds me…
        
• Read.
  Read for fun. Read for learning. Read voraciously. But read quality materials. Scott Fosdick, a professor at San Jose State University, has this excellent resolution to offer: “I resolve to regularly monitor my media consumption, with an eye toward increasing the meaningful and deep and decreasing the trivial and shallow.
         
• Teach.
  Chrys Wu (Twitter: @MacDivaONA), a journalist and editorial consultant, puts it eloquently: “A respect for experience and a willingness to teach.” All of this information you’re soaking up should be passed along, don’t you think? Teach others what you’ve learned, whether it’s to fellow students, through your blog, or even your teachers and other professionals. Yes, you might know something they don’t (but don’t let that get to your head!). Jeff Jarvis posts here about journalism students who learn new computer applications and turn around to teach the professional journalists how to use them. It’s an excellent idea. Nothing ensures you know a subject more than having to teach it, and programs like the one Jeff mentions ensures that others in the profession know it too.

A bit too much? Well there’s more. Tomorrow there will be a barrage of New Year’s resolutions all linked to networking. Part II: Network Like Mad is now up!

Greg Linch also has a great list of top 10 things journalism students should do. Also indirectly related, Howard Owens has advice for journalists of all types to get more wired.

Want to add a resolution? Please add your own in the comments below!

EDIT 1: Added another bullet point at the end of the list, Teach.
EDIT 2: Also, thanks to Ryan Sholin (@ryansholin) and Jeff Jarvis (@jeffjarvis) for the shout-out!
EDIT 3: And Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) for his tweet! My, you people flatter. :)
EDIT 4: Just discovered this very interesting wiki called How To Be A Journalism Student, which was based on a post on OJB by Paul Bradshaw (@paulbradshaw). Excellent. I will be adding bits and pieces to it, and you should too. (Psst: the password is “howto.”)
EDIT 5: Thanks to Andy Dickinson (@digidickinson), I stumbled on this post by Shawn Smith (@shawnsmith) called “Forget survival: The Journalist’s Guide to Owning 2009 and Beyond.” It’s in a very similar vein as this one, and it’s great stuff. Enjoy.
EDIT 6: And Whitney Rhodes (@wrhodes) at the CourierPostOnline has her new year’s resolutions for graduating journos.
EDIT 7: Gina Chen at Save The Media makes another good post with her hopes for journalists in the future. (I don’t mind all these edits, do you? :) )
EDIT 8: Alan Kellogg commented here with an addendum to the “Grow some cojones” item. It’s been added.
EDIT 9: Many commenters say they appreciate my post was mostly positive. But Chris Boese (@chrisboese) fairly asks in the comments if I’m “whistling past the graveyard” and warns against seeing business school classes as the answer to everything. She makes many valid points, but I have a lot to say in response. I will do in a follow-up post, and also in the series of posts I began and will continue on the business of news. I also wanted to make sure I am not coming across as saying “If only people like Miles O’Brien did a better job and became more invaluable, he’d still be employed.” That is simply not the economic reality right now, and not the reason for the post. However, please do read Chris’ full comments here; it’s important to get another side of things.
EDIT 10: Just posted Part II: Network Like Mad. Hope this helps.
EDIT 11: Added a great link from Ben LaMothe (@benlamothe) to the “Start pitching stories to publications” item.
EDIT 12: Added this link to the multimedia item that features interviews from industry professionals themselves. It’s a good one.
EDIT 13: Just added Robert Picard’s The Media Business to the “Take a business course or five” item.
EDIT 14 (2/21/09): Added BizPay to the “Take a business course or five” item.

Tomorrow I turn 28. But before you leave a quick and dirty “Happy birthday!” greeting on this blog, Twitter or Facebook wall, please consider doing something else extremely important to me first. 

Consider donating a small sum of money to the future of journalism.

It could be $1 or $100 for all I care, but this is a way to show me that your birthday wishes aren’t just hollow pats on the back. And to set the example, tomorrow I will be laying down a symbolic $28, a buck per year of my existence, for each of my two favorite journalistic causes: Spot.Us and The Public Press. It’s not much, but it’s what I can afford. Please consider doing the same.

Here’s a bit about them:

• Spot.Us (http://www.spot.us) is a Web site where journalists in the Bay Area can pitch stories, and you, the public, can choose to fund their freelance wages. You can choose the subject you think deserves more in-depth reporting (might I suggest the pitch to uncover problems embedded within the Oakland Police Department? It only needs $135 more!). The organization was founded by my good friend David Cohn and funded by the Knight News Challenge and, naturally, by people like you.
• The Public Press (http://public-press.org) is a noncommercial, nonprofit news organization in San Francisco, much in the same vein as these organizations, but with two added goals: 1) to publish in both print and online formats, and 2) to eschew advertisements to prevent the conflicts of interest that have historically dogged journalism’s objectivity. The project was founded by Michael Stoll, and I’ve been fortunate enough to begin serving an internship there. Donate here (and be sure to select “The Public Press” from the drop-down menu.)

Both of these organizations are starting out in the San Francisco Bay Area, and depending on their success, they will expand other areas as well. That’s why they need your support now more than ever. (Coincidentally, before I even sat down to write this, Chris O’Brien of the San Jose Mercury News posted a plug for the exact same two groups.) 

Now, neither of these organizations claim to be the answer that will save all of journalism. News organizations, and particularly the printed product, are trapped in a death spiral that comes along with the collapse of the business model that has sustained them for so long. If dead trees give way to e-paper (like Amazon’s Kindle), that’s great news for everyone — except for the many newspapers that won’t be able to survive until that happens, or the many people who neither have Internet access nor can afford e-paper devices. The biggest problem, though, is that newspapers were the last institutions left that funded quality, in-depth and investigative reporting, the kind of reporting democracy needs to have a well-educated and literate voting public. You can go online to get your news, but Google News is nothing without the backbone of newspapers. These two organizations are doing everything they can to supply both the online and the print worlds with the kind of journalism democracy needs.

I hope this doesn’t come off as too preachy, and rest assured, if you can’t afford even $1 to these organizations, I completely, 100% understand. But in the midst of this chaos, it’s now our chance to completely rethink what journalism is, what it should be, and what it means to society itself. These two organizations do just that. 

And while I’ll be busy celebrating my 28 trips around the sun, hopefully your contributions today will someday help both these superb organizations celebrate theirs.

“If I had to choose between government without newspapers, and newspapers without government, I wouldn’t hesitate to choose the latter.” -Thomas Jefferson

Trying to nail down specific operating costs from one newspaper is next to impossible. That information, naturally, is proprietary and confidential, as I came to find out in my handful of phone calls. But that doesn’t help anyone who is trying to analyze a newsroom’s business plan from afar. I know I will not be hired as an accounting consultant any time soon, but I really want to understand just how tough it is to survive as a newspaper in 2008. Are these massive layoffs necessary? Where else could be cut before personnel have to go?

I shot an email to Paul Kauppila, a reference librarian that works specifically with the school of journalism here at SJSU. The resources he pointed me to were invaluable (a list of which I will post PDQ), and I ended up crawling on my hands and knees bookhunting through the section of the library that dealt with newspaper issues.

I found something.

Read the rest of this entry »

My major may be journalism here at SJSU, but my minor is business, because I realize a little too well that if you want to make it in this tough working climate, you can’t rely on your “hirable” skills. News flash: no one is hiring. You have to be innovative and entrepreneurial. I know next to nothing about the business side of the journalism world, which is why I chose my minor.

So in the accounting class required for my minor, I’ve been asked to write a paper on anything my pretty little heart desired, as long as it had something to do with accounting. Naturally, I pick the future of the journalism industry, and in particular newspapers.

I just “finished” the paper and turned it in, but it is in no way finished. I have more stuff to find out and more resources than I know what to do with (with the help of my new BFF, the journalism department’s dedicated librarian). So I want to start a series of blog posts, adding to the cacophany of already-established journalism bloggers who write about the future of journalism.

But here I want to emphasize hard numbers above lofty ideals, because frankly hard numbers scare me but that’s what we all need to look at. Journalists and math tend to go together like oil and water, but it’s the math that’s needed and sorely missing from the online resources I found. I suck at math, too, but I’m willing to push the data and discussions in a cohesive place and open it for discussion.

So I hope this works, and I hope this discovery process helps others too. Let me know if you know of any resources.

(Those of you in or near San Jose, California, go to my other post at sanjose.metblogs.com. I have more links for you there.)

If you live in the United States, I don’t have to remind you that we’re in the climax of election season and we should be getting our October Surprises any time now. But I do want to point you in the direction of quality unbiased information about what you’re going to vote for on Nov. 4. So please, for the love of God, don’t rely on relentless attack ads, cable TV pundits or political operatives who appear to do nothing but parrot talking points. Make your own decisions, and let these sites help inform:

Smart Voter
Enter your address and see everything that will be on the ballot in your neighborhood — every person running for your district, every measure that applies to your area. If you did not already get your voters’ guide in the mail, this is the perfect place to start.

Project Vote Smart
Look up your candidates and current office-holders by zip code, then easily find their voting record, public statements, speeches and videos. This site excels with the lesser-known local and state representatives. An invaluable resource.

Politifact
If you’re tired of trying to figure out which national candidate to believe, this is a great site to see quickly who just lied about what.

Factcheck
Another great fact-checking resource From the Annenberg Public Policy Center. This goes more in-depth than Politifact.

Open Secrets
Follow the money: see who is donating to candidates and elected officials.

Glassbooth
Still not sure who you’re voting for in the presidential race? This site will quiz you on your core values and match you with a candidate.

This morning I got up, looked forward to a productive day of freelance work, when I came across this story about the U.S. women’s soccer team in my newspaper and almost choked on my Cheerios:

First thought: Wait… whaaaaat… Did I just see that? Is that… um… WHAAAT?

Second thought: No.. I must be overreacting. There’s a logical explanation for this.

I looked up the word at Merriam-Webster, then at Urban Dictionary, (generally NSFW), just to be sure I wasn’t misunderstanding. Oh no, I wasn’t misunderstanding.

I couldn’t possibly be overreacting. This is serious, like employee-discipline serious, right? I posted my shock to Twitter and got these responses:

	boml @suzanneyada Wow, that is bad. And not an isolated case http://tinyurl.com/6rs8kt
	byline25 @suzanneyada That headline is tasteless. It is seriously one of the most offensive headlines I’ve ever seen in my life.
	MaryTrigiani @suzanneyada Where is Visalia? Don’t blame you for being irate.
	pickoffwhite @suzanneyada I find it pretty offensive. Especially as someone who plays/loves soccer.
	mikeoz @suzanneyada eeek. yeah, that’s not good. woobie @suzanneyada Yeah, that does seem to cross a line — would the run the same headline for the men’s team?

Boml’s link lead to a blog post about another paper in Australia who wrote a similar headline:

The debate with this one, though, is that “digger” has a different connotation down under. But even so, the caption on the news website has since been changed anyway.

So what excuse does that give a Californian paper? None.

I called up the senior editor, whom I respected when I worked there. He’s one of those old-time journalists, the kind who knows the news industry inside and out, has a million stories to tell, loves whisky and wears suspenders.

And he just… didn’t… quite… see… the problem… of that headline. And I had a hell of a time convincing him.

The first problem was that he told me I was the first person who called in to complain about the headline. I don’t believe that for one second. I called him at 11 am, well after the issue hit the streets. And this at a paper whose phone lines were flooded with calls once because someone put the word “freaking” in a headline. As in, “freaking cool.” Yeah.

So I had to explain to him the meaning of the term “gold digger” and that it’s a derogatory term for women who date richer men just for their money. He said he understood it could be taken offensively and tried to explain it was not meant to be taken in that context. I told him there was no other context to take — the headline would have never been used for the men’s soccer team. He tried to say it was for effect, that if they wrote the headline “Women’s Soccer Wins 3-2″ it wouldn’t have made as much of an impact. By then, I truly believe he forgot he was on the phone with me, someone that’s written headlines for them for three years. I know why they write headlines that aren’t straight-forward, I know how much labor it takes to making one headline as accurate as possible in the space allotted. This one seemed to be a filler headline the sports desk put in until they thought of a better one — and they never did change it.

He seemed sympathetic but wanted to stand his ground in the headline’s defense. I don’t think I made my message clear enough until I told him that there’s a strip joint in Bakersfield [my bad: Fresno] called Gold Diggers. That seemed to shut him up a bit.

I wonder if I spoke to the executive editor — a woman — I would have had a different reaction.

I just… I just can’t believe for a second I’m the only one in Visalia who called in. I’m outraged because a) this is MY paper, that I love and respect, b) I know the people behind it, and c) THEY KNOW BETTER!

…Or do they?

EDIT TO ADD: I’ve called a couple other editors and confirmed that yes, there pretty much was only one person who called in to complain. I don’t consider myself (or those who responded to my Twitter) a femi-Nazi-type. Am I off? Or is the town?

I was also told that the editor who wrote it truly didn’t realize how offensive it would be and meant no harm. I am just… confused. Really confused. Sometimes I wonder if I’m the one living in an alternate reality.

Volumes have already been said about Twitter in journalism. Poynter, Harvard and PBS chimed in, and Ryan Sholin gives journalists concrete ideas here.

My two cents:

• Twitter is only as useful as the people you follow and the people who follow you. If you don’t have the right people on either side of the equation, forget it. (Want a list of great journalistic Twitter users? Go here.)
• I found out about John Edwards’ affair, both Bernie Mac’s and Issac Hayes’ deaths and the Russia/Georgia conflict first on Twitter. But that’s not Twitter specifically — I find headlines on Yahoo, from people’s Myspace bulletins and Facebook status updates, in a local news email newsletter, AND in the dead-tree newspaper I read at the breakfast table. It just so happens that I’m addicted to Twitter and I check it more often than others. It’s just one more source of news to add to your arsenal.
• Unless it’s an earthquake and a million people are twittering the same thing at the same time, how is a news event going to be immediately dispersed to an audience as large as it needs? Twitter still has a comparatively small number of users. And unless the news itself has viral qualities, it will be broadcast to someone’s Twitter network and stop there.
• Only news stories that require just headlines and no context will be able to scoop the Associated Press (like the afore-mentioned OMGWTFBBQ EARTHQUAKE!!).
• We are taught in journalism school to answer who, what, where, when, why and how. Twitter forces us to distill all that information into 140 characters, which is a good thing, but also contributes to the ADD-like consumption of news, which is bad.
• Having said that, people do not use Twitter one tweet at a time. Many journalists see Twitter as nothing more than a headline-pusher. MISTAKE. It’s more than OK to have consecutive tweets that build off of one another, rather than having each news story self-contained.
• Ironically, instead of limiting reporters to 140 characters, Twitter frees reporters up to post little blips of color and context that would normally be edited out of the dead-tree edition. This excellent reporting experiment by Ron Sylvester shows how he used Twitter to update the public on a capital punishment trial. He published micro-bits of color and context as the trial went along. He says, “I cut and pasted all my ‘tweet’ updates into a traditional story file. It measured 80 inches.“
• The real power of my Twitter list is when people post a headline and follow it with a tinyurl to an interesting news story, blog or discussion. It’s like sending links to your friends without spamming or being intrusive — you can always unsubscribe.
• People, please don’t use Twitter as simply a way to rewire an RSS feed. RSS feeds often lead to too many tweets. And if you tweet too much, I de-friend you. Simple as that. Have an actual person be behind it — one of the reasons people will subscribe to your Twitter feed is because it seems so much more personal and one-on-one with the people behind the news media.
• Don’t ever, EVER call me a Twitterling, a Tweetster or Tweeple. I am a Twitter user, not a member of the Mickey Mouse Club.