Wednesday, October 24, 2007

New techniques for young journalism job hunters Young reporters have had some success "branding themselves" for jobs at the Times, according to the New York Observer. Fame and Obscurity at The New York Times: The brand is you! The new new new Journalism thrives on the new anxiety in journalism: avoiding redundancy. Hey, kids, they're hiring at the Times! The article also mentions this Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism event: ...a day-long workshop called "Building A Personal Website and Your Online Brand"; the attendees were all "working journalists." In the morning session, the workshop leader, Columbia J-school Dean of Students Sree Sreenivasan, led the participants through a number of journalists' Web sites, and asked which sites they found useful and which they didn't. Sree Sreenivasan is a good guy to know, by the way. The "dean of students" title is true, but misleading. He's better known off-campus as a writer and consultant on online-journalism issues, appearing on NBC-TV and the Poynter Institute website. His home page above features plenty of useful links for online and offline journalism students -- and working reporters... with a lot less clutter than mine. 3:40:07 PM    comment [] Facebook groups: You are what you click... Click cliques? In a discussion of "We Media" do-it-yourself journalism and social networking, I asked my "Media & Society" students for examples of Facebook "groups" they have joined. I was testing my impression that the vast majority are "bumper sticker only" organizations, or are being treated that way by most members. The class did come up with a few groups trying to make Radford a better place -- by improving bus service, or improving campus and off-campus recycling, or saving the "Highlander" mascot instead of replacing it with a red sock-puppet. So there's hope, not that I object to bumper stickers. And just in time for the next inning of discussion, with an equally timely crossover to another pet peeve of mine, here's a The New York Times story about a Facebook group dedicated to... good grammar. "Ms. Nichols is one of many young people throwing off her generation's reputation for slovenly language, and taking up the gauntlet for good grammar. Last year, after seeing a sign on a restaurant window that said 'Applications Excepted,' she started a grammar vigilante group on Facebook, the social networking site, and called it 'I Judge You When You Use Poor Grammar.' Its 200,000 members have gleefully and righteously sent in 5,000 photographs documenting grammatical errors..." Uploading all those photos goes beyond my definition of "bumper-sticker-only" commitment: Being willing to identify publicly with a cause, theme or meme... but not doing anything beyond clicking a mouse -- not even paying dues or buying a magazine subscription. Digression: Compare the "I'll send all the money you ask for, but don't ask me to come on along" liberals Phil Ochs sang about. Hmm. "I'll send all the mouse-clicks you ask for..."? Has anyone else coined the phrase "mouse-click liberal" -- one twitch more active than "knee-jerk"? Tempting, but the concept isn't just for liberals. How about "mouse-click activist"? (Aha. Someone beat me to that meme.) But who has time to do more than click a mouse? For instance, I'm just about that willing to support a group that aims to get 1 million Stephen Colbert fans to join his presidential campaign site... in hopes that it will raise student interest in the election process. And I'm equally willing to encourage the folks behind "I judge you when you use poor grammar," although I hope they find a less partisan picture than the current mascot so that the focus can stay on grammar, not any particular fumble-tongued politician. So I joined, then glanced at the list of "related" organizations Facebook automagically offered me. I'm not doing any more joining. They look like a pretty grumpy group of groups: (I assume these links will work only if you are logged into Facebook, if then.) No, I Don't Care If I Die At 12AM, I Refuse To Pass On Your Chain Letter. Common Interest - Beliefs & Causes People Who Always Have To Spell Their Names For Other People Business - Public Relations I Secretly Want To Punch Slow Walking People In The Back Of The Head Sports & Recreation - Extreme Sports I Dont care How Comfortable Crocs Are, You Look Like A Dumbass. Common Interest - Philosophy If You Can't Differentiate Between "Your" and "You're" You Deserve To Die Common Interest - Languages Caveat Professor: My students were amused when I logged onto Facebook in class and listed groups my own "friends" joined recently... "Hong Kong lesbians" or something like that was near the top of the list. I explained that every communication- and- culture scholar must have at least one Ph.D. associate who does research on "net porn" issues. On Facebook, as in life, some bumper stickers have weaker glue than others, and some are polysemic. (This has been edited since the original posting and RSS feed.) 1:33:42 PM    comment []

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