Thanks for the anxiety attack

In the same breadth I’d say this is the most exciting time to be in media since the advent of television.

Signs of a tectonic shift in the way news is consumed have been evident for the past decade. If you put in 60 hours a week in the most traditional type of news product and ask for a job in 2009 – it’s a sad story, but its hard to see how its surprising.

Positions are crumbling in every newspaper but there are openings in publications that have been on the edge of online publishing. TPM advertised two positions open to bloggers a few months ago, HuffPo has positions open, Gawker posted an opening on NYU’s Career Net last night. Getting them requires sharply different experience and skills than what can be developed at a print newspaper.

The take away point here is one that Adam Penenberg recites at nauseam in the halls of NYU’s J-School – when media is in transition you have to make yourself a job – not ask for one.

Joe, don’t be anxious. Cody makes a good point. I think it’s a fascinating time to be involved in media; I guess the problem is it probably won’t turn out to be a lucrative one (and by lucrative I mean able to afford your shitty Brooklyn studio).

That Penenberg quote is awesome and very true.

Lovely though Penenberg’s quote sounds, until we come up with a successful model for monetizing internet journalism, the jobs we create for ourselves will be depressingly underpaid.

Lily, you’re absolutely right! (In my totally academic, respected, and renowned opinion.) I can create fancy little internships for myself all I want, and put my hand over my mouth and call my name and pretend it’s the Editor-in-Chief of glossy new magazine Josh’Shots Monthly speaking, but at the end of the day we both know that it’s just me, alone, broke and sad.

The gift of new media is a precious and tenuous thing.

I totally agree with you guys. Someone asked Josh and I last night if we got paid for writing on Jess and Josh and we basically burst out laughing because we will never get paid for that sad stack of words and HTML, no matter how much effort we put into it.

P.S. I’d subscribe to Josh’Shots Monthly

@ Lily and @ Joe

Ha – You guys both either have media jobs or just left decent paying ones because of class.

That is, if you were to live in Bushwick.

—

The Atlantic nailed it on the head:

“The collapse of daily print journalism will mean many things. For those of us old enough to still care about going out on a Sunday morning for our doorstop edition of The Times, it will mean the end of a certain kind of civilized ritual that has defined most of our adult lives. It will also mean the end of a certain kind of quasi-bohemian urban existence for the thousands of smart middle-class writers, journalists, and public intellectuals who have, until now, lived semi-charmed kinds of lives of the mind. And it will seriously damage the press’s ability to serve as a bulwark of democracy.”

I think there is a prejudice against those with print backgrounds. For some reason, people think that because I’ve worked at a “print” publication most of my career, I am somehow not ready to work at an online “on-the-edge” publication. Truth is that content is content — and people want good content. I can run an online publication with my print experience (I’m doing it now) because, really, the skill sets aren’t all that different. Good reporting is good reporting. Good writing is good writing. But the truth of the matter is that, in this market, you’ve got to be lucky and brilliant to land a decent job — maybe more the former than the latter.

@Alivn

Just as there are differences between a dissertation and an Op-Ed, there are fundamental differences between what works on a blog and what works in a print newspaper. Writing is writing, reporting is reporting only if you disregard the nuances of what makes these mediums interesting. Same is true for running an online publication – anyone can get a WordPress account or design a website. Running one that garners thousands of comments, hundreds of thousands of hits, a high technorati rating, a reputation in the blogverse, is entirely different.

There is crossover but showing that you can be successful online, that you understand the nuances is what will get you a job online. This has nothing to do with prejudice and everything to do with being pragmatic.

Jessica–
“punched in the face for brazen interview techniques”? dare i ask? do tell what happened in this instance….

I guess I’ll just make documentaries.

Maggie: Was exaggerating, though perhaps some day I will get punched in the face for asking the wrong question. Can’t say I probably wouldn’t deserve it.

Then, I shall ask, what does it take to be successful online v. successful in print? How does one “show” this? And, I ask, who will hire you once you “show” this? And where does that leave the old school reporter — the one who digs up information, does reporting and does it with due diligence? Is that now dated?

I second the call for a Josh’s Shots Monthly magazine. Somewhere between Art Forum and Radar, perhaps.

As for the rest of this issue: I don’t think that the Times was ever, like, handing out jobs. Writing as a livelihood has always seemed like an unrealistic goal to me; something that happens due to a lucky break or connections, etc. Even before the industry started collapsing.

[...] print journalism slowly dies, so does the Associated Press. The 162-year old news wire has faced a large revenue loss over the [...]

I have a lot to say about this, but it probably belongs in my own blog, not in the comments section of this eloquent article, as it will doubtlessly out-word it…

My only immediate response is to the supposed Gawker media posting on CareerNet, because obviously I’m a huge nerd and had to go check that out as soon as I read that it existed, and I must point out it is not a writing position. So yeah, you can get hired by a company that produces written content, but they’re not necessarily hiring writers…just firing their best one, IMHO. Not so heartening. But also, did anyone else LOL really hard when they got to the “Perks” part of the posting and read “Other obvious benefits.” Thanks Nick Denton!

@Alvin

Good question. It’s answer is by no means simple because we are dealing with a type of communication in the grassroots stage of development. One of the most intelligent pieces I’ve found on the style differences between online and print writing was a panel discussion that N+1 hosted. This is the link: http://www.steamthing.com/2008/06/how-is-the-inte.html

Takeaway quotes:

“The internet is inhospitable to that kind of quietness. If your browser were to happen on such a page, your eyes would likely go blank with impatience. Who is this guy? Why aren’t there any links? And, more damningly, Is anyone else reading this? A text on the internet rarely takes for granted your decision to read it or to continue reading it. There is often, instead, a jazzy, hectoring tone. ”

” There is a greater tolerance online for sloppy and inexact writing—not merely for typos but for a generalized kludginess of thought, especially the errors that the usage stickler H. W. Fowler named “haziness,” “swapping horses,” and “unequal yokefellows,” which may all be loosely described as changing your mind about the grammatical structure of a sentence halfway through writing it—and such tolerance is to be expected if people are reading primarily for the sake of a feeling of belonging. One also finds more flattery and more insults online, another hint that online readers are more interested in affiliation and in the feelings associated with including and excluding other people.”

“This willingness in readers to overlook form raises a question as to whether online writing entertains, in the traditional sense of the word. I am not sure that it does. Reading online does not seem to me to be a pleasure in itself but a response to irritation. That is, it is not like eating an ice cream cone; it is like scratching an itch.”

I think the last quote explains why Gawker, The Huffington Post, and the Drudge Report do so well online – they take current news items and pump out headlines and angles that create this itch.

The most simple way to show you understand this and have a talent for it is to consistently write articles/posts that generate a ton of conversation. ‘Clips’ show only a portion of what I’m interested in – I want to see what’s below . Its one of the biggest skills we look for when students apply to Local.

@Cody

I think you are missing a chunk of, well, journalism. I must ask: What kind of reporting do you ask for? Because, in the end, most of today’s “online journalists” don’t report. They simply comment on and spin the content generated by reporters.

Gawker, HuffPo and Drudge can only exist because of original reporting. They are only able to do what they do because a reporter has developed a network of sources, done extensive research on the matter, and built a library of information which allows them to accurately and vigorously report on a subject.

I’ve edited work from hundred, if not thousands, of student journalists — many at NYU, several around the country. Of course it was nice to have good writers. But I wanted good reporters. I wanted the people who could go out and think through a story, smartly report the story and churn out a tightly written piece. I would hope my future employers expect the same of me. In fact, having been a beat reporter at a professional paper, I know that is what they expect of me — a democracy like our demands that reports like us exist.

In addition, at the several professional media outlets I’ve worked for — print and online — and the pieces that attract the most readers are always old-school news stories. People want to know what is happening in their community, beyond what they can see on the streets.

My argument is both about the economics and the values of journalism. I don’t care where the journalism is published. I do, however, care about what our work means to the public.

p.s. By your judgment, I would not be employed at Local. Hey, they’re your rules…
p.p.s. I am enjoying this conversation. You’re welcome for the hits.

[...] 6:58: Jill Abramson paraphrases Alvin Chang. [...]

@Alvin: No, YOU’RE welcome for the hits… the hits I’m going to give you next time I see you for making that little remark!

[...] By Jess I make a lot of jokes about WSN, and sometimes I even jokingly refer to them as a “gossip rag.” The WSN staff and I have differing opinions on the way journalism should function, and even [...]