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:: suzanne yada ::

Come on over to the 21st Century. We have candy.

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    I'm a former copy editor, recent journalism grad and future employee of an as-of-yet-unknown news organization. Perhaps yours.

    Contact me if you're looking for a social media strategist, web producer, copy editor or designer. Or check out my resume and samples of my work below. I'd love to show you what I can do.

    E-mail me at: suzanne :: at :: suzanneyada :: dot :: com

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    • New AP Stylebook entries: Why is ground zero now lowercase?
    • Things I love about TBD.com (and a few things I don’t)
    • How our university newspaper used social media to find news and break it
    • In which I say goodbye to the Bay Area
    • Tips for an awesome student newspaper experience
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Archive for July, 2010

In which I say goodbye to the Bay Area

Author: Suzanne Yada Date Posted: July 23rd, 2010

Me at Vesuvio Cafe in North Beach, San Francisco

I’m leaving San Jose in two weekends, back home to Visalia. Whatever “home” means nowadays.

I have no idea what’s next, but I’m open to any possibility. I could up-sticks and move clear across country – I could use a bit of East Coast butt-kicking in my life. I could end up in the Middle of Nowhere, Kansas, and reconnect with that whole Real America contingent, as opposed to the Fake America I now live in.

But for now, I have to unlatch myself from my current Bay Area location. Which means I have to get my kicks in now in case some opportunity draws me far, far away.

I’m just trying to wrap my head around the fact that San Francisco is no longer going to be in my backyard.

There is so much I wanted to do up here and never did: cheesy touristy crap like ride the cable cars, or sophisticated geeky things like sit in a café in North Beach and write my heart out.

The second item on the agenda is being fulfilled right now. Here I am at Vesuvio Cafe, on the second floor that overlooks City Lights Books. If it was good enough for Jack Kerouac and Francis Ford Coppola, it’s good enough for me.


Sign for Vesuvio Cafe, San Francisco

I felt like I’ve been applying to jobs left and right in the area, to no avail. So I’ve expanded my search nationwide. It’s no secret that it’s competitive up here. Look, I can throw down with the best of them, and I’m still hustling to find something in the web producer or social media arena. I have confidence I’ll land something great soon.

But this idea of saying goodbye to the Bay Area has consumed me at the moment. It’s ironic that the handful of job applications in my queue that could allow me to stay here permanently are being put on hold for this ridiculous, drawn-out, sappy farewell.

I feel like I’m in mourning. Or in panic mode.

When I was in Visalia, I would drive the three-and-a-half hours fairly often to be in San Francisco. When I moved to San Jose, I took advantage of BART and CalTrain connections constantly.

My admiration for this city is making me do strange things now, like spelunking in buildings I have no business entering, or paying far too much for ferry rides to Sausalito (OMG I’m on a boat!!1)..

It also led me to the epicenter of San Francisco tourist traps: Hyde and Beach streets. But I was only happy to be trapped in such a beautiful panorama.

Behind me, Ghirardelli Square. In front of me, the cable car turnaround. To the left was the Golden Gate Bridge gently arching above blue bay waters. To the right, Buena Vista Café, where I met Sean Blanda not too long ago and sipped an Irish coffee while talking tech and journalism, an issue this Silicon Valley place helped create.

Golden Gate Bridge from Fisherman's Wharf
Golden Gate Bridge from Fisherman’s Wharf
Ghirardelli Square
Ghirardelli Square
Cable car turnaround, Hyde and Beach streets
Cable car turnaround, Hyde and Beach streets


People give their life savings to be in this city. They travel halfway around the world to be here.

I’m here now, eyes wide open, phone camera at the ready, neck craned upward.

I’m here, San Francisco.

Not for long, but I’m here.

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Tips for an awesome student newspaper experience

Author: Suzanne Yada Date Posted: July 9th, 2010

Before I even got into the meat of my journalism-school experience (read: the Spartan Daily, San Jose State University’s student paper), I spouted off a laundry list of advice for journalism students.

But now that j-school is officially behind me, I have a new perspective on that monstrous beast of an experience I just went through. And I’m also being asked for interviews about that perspective.

Dan Reimold called me up from Singapore a few months ago for an interview and just today posted the results. (Thanks, Dan, for making me sound smart!)

Alesa Commedore, an intern at Ourblook.com, did a video Skype interview last week that should appear on the site later on. I’ll let you all know when it’s posted.

And Rachele Kanigel, an instructor at San Francisco State, asked me some questions over e-mail to help update her textbook, The Student Newspaper Survival Guide. I have to say, I wish I knew this book existed before I was interviewed for it.

With her permission, I’m sharing my advice for student journalists at campus publications with you. (I’m only speaking of roles where I’ve had extensive experience — my apologies to the photography and videography students out there. For that, check out the excellent blogs from Mindy McAdams or Mark Luckie.)

All staff:
  • Do not be married to your work. I know you spent a half an hour perfecting one sentence. If it doesn’t work, it will be edited. I know you just spent 8 hours on that infographic. If it doesn’t go with the story, it can’t run. That is the nature of the business. If you can’t deal with it now, don’t go into journalism.
  • Work with people, not against. When you’re working with fellow students , you have to be flexible. Everyone is learning.
  • Always have a plan B, C, D and a vague idea for a plan E.
  • Treat every opportunity like a test for your dream job. What do you want future employers to see? Do that.
  • Know your style. Most American schools go off of AP Style. If you haven’t dug into the industry standard stylebook from A to Z yet, get on it. I’m even looking at you, photographers.
  • Make sure you have a copy of everything you’ve done when you leave the newspaper. That includes articles, photos, video, Flash projects, headlines, editing (save before-and-after copies of particularly difficult edits), live blogs, live tweets, everything. You never know what kind of job opportunities pop up in the future, and you may want to show them what you can do.
Reporters:
  • Get it right. At SJSU, our mass communications building is named Dwight Bentel Hall, and the namesake just turned 100 years old. He had only three bits of advice for our newsroom: Get it right, get it right and get it right.
  • Always save your notes. (EDIT: Thanks to the commenters of this post who pointed out that this is bum advice. See below for the reasons.)
  • Don’t rely on technology, but do use it if you can. Carry a pad and paper everywhere and always take written notes. That’s in case your tape recorder, iPhone, laptop, Pulse smartpen or any otherwise helpful gadget fails on you. You’ll find that transcribing takes up way too much time on deadline anyway.
  • Our adviser encouraged all reporters to call up sources and read back their own quotes to them. It’s a good practice.
  • Keep organized. Have an address book with the names of your sources, their title, their contact info and the name of the story they were interviewed.
  • Move fast. Tweet news as it happens. Post a paragraph online with a note that says, “For more, see tomorrow’s edition.” The quicker you learn how to be quick, the faster you will be in adjusting to the real world of journalism.
  • Take deadlines seriously. When I was working as a copy editor at a daily paper, we had to write an e-mail to five — count ‘em, FIVE — superiors if we were any more than three minutes past deadline. Feel that kind of pressure now. It’s good training.
  • Push for deeper stories. Don’t just run with your first obvious idea. Pitch something your editor doesn’t even know about. Start talking to people. Start digging through documents no one else is digging through. Start reporting.
  • Get it right. Get it right. Get it right.
Editors:
  • Please, please, learn to delegate.  When you delegate a task to someone, you are not relinquishing control, nor are you admitting defeat. You are being a manager. Maintain your ownership over the task. Check up on its progress at reasonable, non-psychotic intervals. And budget out time to train others to do the parts of your job you can’t — or shouldn’t — be doing. Other people want the opportunity to learn something, too. Don’t hog it all to yourself.
  • Lead by example, not by force.
  • Some writers are going to need more red pen than others. Remember that it’s an intimidating, sometimes hurtful process. Work with them so they understand why changes are being made. You’re the de-facto teacher.
  • Communicate. Good God, you’re in the communications industry.
  • On the first day your newsroom meets, get everyone’s contact info, schedule and how far from campus they live. This will be vital when breaking news hits.
  • Plan an initiation bootcamp for the first week your news staff has formed. That means you need to plan some weeks ahead of time. Include how to use software, how to file stories, how to post breaking news to the website, how to do multimedia, how to shoot good photos, etc. You’d hope that previous classes would have taught these skills, but not everyone was paying attention, and you may have some transfer students who didn’t get the memo. Plus, there are specific ways your publication works, and those are important to iron out before the first edition hits the streets.
  • Think visually. I know you’re used to working with words, but you have to coordinate the photographers, videographers, multimedia crew and designers for your stories. If you can’t think visually, ask those who can to think for you.
Designers:
  • Always, always, always have alternatives in mind. I’ve worked as a designer and copy editor for a daily newspaper for three years. Changes happen last-minute all the time. Be ready to completely redo A1 with 15 minutes to deadline.
  • Subscribe to Lynda.com and really learn your design software.
  • Get reporters to start thinking design, like sidebars and graphics and charts. Coordinate with editors and make sure there is room for them in the paper.
  • Get Tim Harrower’s book The Newspaper Designer’s Handbook. It’s excellent. My particular favorite: The Maestro worksheet (PDF).
  • At my job, I learned the dollar-bill rule. If you can place a dollar bill on a page and it doesn’t hit some sort of design element — a photo, a pull quote, a sidebar, a drop cap — it’s too much text. Add something, but purposefully.
Online editors:
  • Do not give up. College students are surprisingly resistant to all this digital crap. But if you see a way your newsroom can do its job better through the magic of the Internet, stand up for it. It’s up to you, and no one else, to fight to bring your newsroom into the 21st Century.
  • Keep up on what’s happening in the industry and new online tools that pop up. If you do nothing else, at least follow Nieman Lab and Mashable.
  • If you can, use an open-source CMS to host your website. Don’t go through a third-party CMS. WordPress is great and allows you to 1) own your own advertising, 2) feature stories and multimedia exactly how you want it, and 3) be in control of your own destiny, to speak grandly. Web design, coding and management are just a few more great skills that makes employers drool. If you need help, join the CoPress community. Or read Lauren Rabaino’s post last year on how the Mustang Daily did it.
  • Be creative. Don’t just do something with social media because some other news outlet is doing the same thing. Really explore possibilities. Journalism school is the place to experiment and stretch limits. Do it.

I actually have another post waiting in the wings to expand on the role of online editors at student publications. Keep tuned in.

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