I’m back! Thanks for still checking on this blog while I was away in Chicago for the UNITY Convention last week.
This was the first convention I have ever attended. Some of my colleagues, like sports writer Wes Nakama, have been going to these things for years.
I was interested in gauging the mood of those in attendance at UNITY, who were mostly minority journalists of Asian, Hispanic, African American and Native American descent. Many of those fighting for diversity in the newsroom have seen this goal set aside in the face of a more pressing problem — journalists of all colors losing their jobs.
I sat in on seminars about blogging, writing a narrative and becoming a foreign correspondent; one about coverage of Muslim Americans and one that was a crash course for journalists in China covering the Beijing Olympics next week.
In every one of them, the underlying theme was that journalism is changing dramatically, mostly because of the internet, and that the traditional newspaper reporter model of someone who simply writes for print is becoming someone who balances writing for print with shooting and editing videos, creating podcasts and possibly blogging, or creating other online content.
The most interesting part of the convention (that also probably held the most story potential) may have been the job fair and career expo. Walking around a career fair featuring an industry that is laying off people left and right is an unsettling experience.
I can’t say that it was comforting to discover that the Advertiser is not the only newspaper that has let go a large number of staffers in recent months. More so, I sensed a general feeling of collective apprehension about the future of an industry that most of us don’t get into for the money.
Quarterlifers are known for being fickle, and bouncing around from job to job every two years, changing careers several times before we finally find something that we’re morally OK with and which pays the bills.
I have to feel like there is some greater purpose, some higher good in the work I do on a day-to-day basis. I take pride in the stories that I write because I feel like they matter to people and that my work benefits the community — if even in a very small way. I think many journalists feel like that. Maybe that’s why we have such big heads.
I’m not sure I could ever do a job I didn’t believe in, regardless of how much they were paying me. But as the nature of journalism changes, people find it hard to adapt and others lose their jobs, and it’s more tempting for many to go that route. There were no shortage of public relations jobs to be found at the job fair. Even the CIA had a booth.
Many feel that what journalism has traditionally accomplished — unearthing wrong-doing, unseating corrupt officials, stirring emotions with simply outstanding writing — cannot be done with new media. But I think blogs in recent years have played a role similar to the investigative reporter way back when, and multimedia, like videos, offer a different way to make readers feel like they are there. It’s dramatically different than print — but not necessarily worse.
I was glad to have had the opportunity to go to UNITY, because I realized that there are still many others out there who have a passion for bringing important stories to the public eye. As long as that passion exists, I’m hanging onto my optimism about the future of this industry.
Day 4 of the UNITY convention. I’ll be hearing Obama speak at McCormick place tomorrow and we’ve been told the place will be on lockdown during the entire session. It will also be televised live at 11 a.m. CDT.
More info:
Obama’s appearance will be his first public address after returning from his trip to Europe and the Middle East. Only attendees of the UNITY convention and working press who received prior press credentials will be permitted to attend.
Obama will take questions from a panel of journalists moderated by Suzanne Malveaux, CNN anchor, and Romesh Ratnesar, world editor, TIME magazine. The panel of questioners include John Yang, White House correspondent, NBC News, representing the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA); Leonard Pitts, Jr., columnist, The Miami Herald, representing the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ); Dianne Solis, senior writer, The Dallas Morning News, and representing the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ); and Brian Bull, assistant news director, Wisconsin Public Radio, representing the Native American Journalists Association (NAJA).
UNITY also asked Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, to speak at the conference. The McCain campaign declined the invitation, citing scheduling conflicts.
All are excellent panelists, and it should be interesting to hear Obama’s comments on his trip. I had wanted to live blog the speech, but they’re not allowing cameras and I doubt that means they’re allowing laptops.
The last official day of the convention is tomorrow but seminars and the career expo concluded today. Interestingly, because the Obama campaign confirmed last-minute (just days before the convention), many attendees already made arrangements to leave town today or early tomorrow. I overheard one person worrying about whether they would be able to fill all the seats, since they’ll only be letting convention attendees with badges and credentialed media through. I’m sure there won’t be a problem. This is (the other) Obama Country, after all.
Story from the AP on whether it’s OK for 7,000 minority journalists to show some enthusiasm for the man who could be the first black president.
The folks here are very conscious of that. Here’s an excerpt from an email sent to all attendees this evening:
Every effort should be made to maintain professional decorum during the event, especially since it will be broadcast to millions of people who will be watching an audience of journalists listening to comments of a political candidate for the U.S. presidency.
So please, no panty-throwing. Whatever happens, look for a blog post after!
I like watching The Hills, but sometimes I find aspects of the MTV reality show difficult to relate to: the Hollywood lifestyle, the high fashion, the excess of blonde…
That’s why I was excited to watch MTV’s newest reality series, The Paper, about the student staff of The Circuit, the award-winning student newspaper of Cypress Bay High School in Weston, Fla. It’s got just the right combination of drama, comedy, touching moments and dorkiness.
The first episode opens with: “Journalists are the most important part of world. They really are,” a surely indisputable truth spoken by the show’s best character, a power-tripping egomaniac named Amanda who also happens to be editor-in-chief. Naturally, just about everyone on her staff wants to do her in. They exclude her from all social activities, gossip about her behind her back and plot at every chance they get to undermine her power.
Fittingly, Amanda has been afforded space to write on The Paper’s web site. To give a taste of her character, here’s what she wrote after watching Episode 2, where she has just won the editor-in-chief position and her staff is still stewing about it:
After watching the episode, I noticed a glaring familiarity between the situation between my peers and me and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama during the most recent democratic debate. I watched the screen and noticed the consuming glimmer of passion that seized our eyes, the exchange of heated glances, and the putrid stink of unrelenting competition.
It’s this air of self-importance — every reporter has it — added to the deliciousness of high school drama that make the show worth watching.
The Paper airs on Mondays at 10:30 p.m. HST. I’d say it’s the best thing to hit MTV in a long time — but I guess I might be a little biased.
No, I’m not talking about posting your resume on LinkedIn. I’m talking about joining a professional organization, putting on dress clothes, going to a dinner or convention or fundraiser, shaking hands, chatting with people who might intimidate you, putting your best face forward even though you may not feel like it that day.
Networking. Lots of people hate it. They’d rather sit at home and scroll through endless lists of jobs on Monster or CareerBuilder. Essentially, no human interaction is involved with many online job search sites — you can just *click* and send in your cover letter and resume.
In my limited time spent in the post-college working world, I’ve come to realize the colossal importance of networking. I used to think that I could get a job based solely on my super-organized resume and academic prowess. But during the search for summer internships in college, I quickly discovered that neither of these meant diddly squat to future employers. There was an entire ocean of aggressive overachievers out there and I was just lost in the crowd.
The Chinese have a word, “guanxi,” a complicated social term that roughly translates to a relationship between people, often where one person can prevail upon the other to perform a service or favor, or vice versa. It’s like “having connections.” In the business world in China, it’s all about the guanxi.
It makes some people uncomfortable to think that their basis for hire can be as much about whether the hirer knows the applicant as whether the applicant’s resume is stellar.
But there’s a reason why networking exists. It seems guanxi is especially important in Hawaii, which is a pretty small town. Each local industry seems very tight, making it both easy and difficult to move between jobs in your profession.
I was thinking about this while preparing for tonight’s “College Night,” hosted by the Hawaii chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association, which I’ve been a member of since returning to Hawaii after graduation, and which I believe ultimately helped me to get a job at the Advertiser. The event is a chance for college students interested in journalism to meet professionals in the media industry, talk about their careers and receive feedback on resumes and clips.
It is odd to find myself on the “professional” side and not the student side anymore. I hardly feel like I embody everything that the word “professional” connotes. Heck, I’m still psyched about having company BUSINESS CARDS.
I wish that I had seized on more opportunities to attend networking events like College Night while I was still in school. It feels good to help plan an event for people who are not too much younger than I am. And I’m excited to meet young people who are interested in journalism and eager to get into the field. Meeting people, having good conversations about something you’re passionate about — it goes both ways.
A New York Times article yesterday about bloggers, and the stress associated with creating and maintaining round-the-clock content on the web, had a lot of interesting observations about the 24/7 news cycle. It relates to what we’re increasingly trying to do at the Advertiser with breaking news, blogs and the 24/7 news room, where an editor must be on duty all the time, even through the night.
The story touched on the recent deaths of two tech bloggers, both of whom died from heart attacks, and other health worries from jobs that require you to become obsessed with breaking news and your computer:
Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet.
To be sure, there is no official diagnosis of death by blogging, and the premature demise of two people obviously does not qualify as an epidemic. There is also no certainty that the stress of the work contributed to their deaths. But friends and family of the deceased, and fellow information workers, say those deaths have them thinking about the dangers of their work style.
OK, I’m not seizing this opportunity to tell you about personal stress or ask you to make a donation to the “Save the Bloggers!” fund. But I do think it’s interesting how the nature of the news room and the news cycle has changed to include nearly instantaneous information available at your fingertips, and how the need to be tethered to every piece of information happening out there has created this anxiety about “breaking news” and being in-the-know about everything.
I’ll use my job as an example: a couple of years ago, the Advertiser introduced “mobile journalists” — or “mojos” as we’re more commonly called. (This, btw, was apparently a Gannett creation.)
The idea? Instead of having everybody operate out of the news room on Kapiolani Boulevard, send several reporters out into the community to watch, listen, talk to residents and gather stories. It’s an approach that emphasizes “hyper-local” news, although we’re always looking for community stories that have broader implications for the island and the state as a whole.
The technology aspect of the job is what I think relates most to the NYT article. The mojos are given a laptop computer, a Sprint wireless card and a cell phone and sent out into our respective communities. We’re also often equipped with video cameras. I’ve written stories from Starbucks, from my car and while sitting on the cafeteria floor during neighborhood board meetings. I communicate with my editor through phone and email primarily, checking in throughout the day. While I was still getting the hang of the job, a lot of my time was spent working from home. (That’s my “office” pictured above.) I also maintain this blog and try to write a post daily.
All in all, when you think about it, it’s an exciting job. I could be stationed behind a desk somewhere stapling cover sheets to my TPS reports. Instead, I’m out in the community, driving around, talking to people and generally enjoying the beauty of the place where I grew up.
There are downsides. For one, it’s a very individualistic sort of thing, even more so than the traditional reporting gig, and you have to enjoy that. When working from home, it’s also sometimes difficult to separate work hours from non-work hours. Let’s face it — if you’re a journalist in this age, you have to keep your finger on your beat at all times. News is not a 9-to-5 gig. When two planes struck the World Trade Center towers early that Tuesday morning seven years ago, if all the journalists in Honolulu had rolled over and gone back to sleep — well, you can imagine what would have happened.
This reality is what every wide-eyed young journalist entering the field has to be aware of. The news room is not what it was five years ago, and I am sure that it will be completely different five years from now. Since joining the staff of the Advertiser, I’ve personally enjoyed learning new skills — shooting video, filing a story while out of the office, using the blog software. But it’s difficult for many who have been in the field a long time to adjust to what journalism is becoming, that is, a juggling act.
While blogging isn’t threatening to do me in anytime soon (I hope), it’s becoming an increasingly complicated world out there for journalists. And that can make anyone a little stressed out.
This was the first convention I have ever attended. Some of my colleagues, like sports writer Wes Nakama, have been going to these things for years.
I like watching 
In my limited time spent in the post-college working world, I’ve come to realize the colossal importance of networking. I used to think that I could get a job based solely on my super-organized resume and academic prowess. But during the search for summer internships in college, I quickly discovered that neither of these meant diddly squat to future employers. There was an entire ocean of aggressive overachievers out there and I was just lost in the crowd.
A New York Times 
