Fishnette

New journalism careers - links, info!

Just came from moderating a fun #CWA2012 panel on Alternative Jobs in Journalism. Here are some tips and links.

Maggie Koerth-Baker, a freelancer, BoingBoing.net science editor and book author, suggests hiring a lawyer and an accountant if you’re going it alone, which many people will be. She says there are tax benefits to incorporating. And consider finding an accountant who specializes in artists, writers and musicians. She says her engineer husband made her write a business plan, and she updates it every year.

Jon Sinton suggests LegalZoom.com as a resource for quick law problems. He’s founder of the now-defunct Air America Radio and of Progressive Voices, among other ventures.

Andy Ihnatko suggests freelancing is the equivalent of the major leagues these days, no longer the bush leagues. While you may not have a single job that pays $72,000 a year, you may be able to find 10 clients to pay you $7,000 a year and you’ll still have your freedom. But you’ve also got to keep your brand credible and ethical.

Krissy Clark, a public radio reporter who also does Stories Everywhere, shared great stories of how she got into journalism, and that you may have to have a day job, as well as a parttime gig.

Writing for free? Most of the time, don’t do it, the panelists said.

Koerth-Baker says she does write for free at the group blog Download The Universe, which  reviews science ebooks. And Clark said some of her favorite work was for little money. Sinton said bringing context to the Internet is perhaps the next big mission/goal that journalists should have - bringing context to clutter.

And while folks are used to getting their news for free, Ihnatko says ebooks have good potential as a revenue stream. He says iBook Author is a good free app to create interactive books. 

It was a great panel! Thanks to Jon, Krissy, Maggie and Andy and to all the students and others in the audience!

Storify and curation

Storify is a great tool for journalists to curate from the Web.

I’ve seen folks use it for breaking news, on a specific topic and even just to save a conversation. It works well for preserving/organizing twitter conversations on a topic. But you can also draw from all sorts of other social media, including Facebook, YouTube, Google+, Flickr, Instagram and just basic Web links, including other news sources.

Kelly Fincham, an assistant journalism professor at Hofstra University, has a great tutorial on using Storify for journalism educators and students. And she touches on one of the key issues of any sort of social media curation today - verification. As with any journalistic effort, you’ll want to make sure what you’re placing in your storify is valid, truthful information. That means checking the sources - do they have a webpage, can you verify their employment with an organization, is there another way to determine that they are who they say they are? Of course, even reputable sources can be wrong (remember initial Twitter reports reports that Gaby Giffords had died?).

Storify posts can be easily embedded on your website or Wordpress blog.

For our audience, curating via Storify can make them feel like part of the story, it gives them a sense of what other people are saying about a story and it blends a variety of media, including photos, audio and video.

Here are a few examples:

• The Buffzone sports crew at the Daily Camera used Storify when CU won the Pac 12 hoops championship (scroll down).
• NBC has storified political reaction to the Trayvon Martin slaying.
• The San Jose Mercury News collected reactions to revelations that Mike Daisey fabricated portions of his story about Apple’s factories in China.
• One of my students did a piece on the U.N.’s list of top 10 tourist destinations.
• Finally, this week the Guardian’s technology editor documented a nasty Twitter dispute between a woman calling out Geeklist for a sexist video and some Geeklist guys who reacted rather defensively. (The following day, Geeklist apologized.)

This is crossposted at JAWS.org.

Good advice from Good!

good:

Recently, a female GOOD staffer was commiserating with a male journalist about the dearth of female bylines in major American magazines. She suggested a solution: He should speak to the editors of these magazines—people he knows personally—about how awesome she is. She was on the phone with a highly regarded editor within a week, discussing the possibilities for freelance work.

Reading big statistics, it’s easy to place yourself in a bystander role. You acknowledge that women are underrepresented in your industry—particularly if you work in media, design, or tech. You know that they are far less visible, and probably paid less, than men of equal experience. You’re frustrated at how difficult it sometimes seems to fill your workplace or panel discussion with enough women. But what have you ever done about it? 

PROMOTE WOMEN. It’s time to stop lamenting and start doing. Here’s how:

1   Think of three women in your industry who are underpaid, underemployed, or under-noticed. Women who are rising through the ranks more slowly than their male peers. Women who are really great at what they do but haven’t been recognized as up-and-comers yet.

2   Think of three powerful people (of any gender) in your industry who you know personally and who are in a position to hire or assign to women.

3   Compose an email to each of those powerful people individually and recommend a specific woman they should meet, hire, or otherwise work with.

4   Email those women and tell them you’ve recommended them. We haven’t provided a form email by design—a genuine, original email is what counts.

Put your email where your mouth is. Use your network. Endorse women today. Then boost the signal. Women, share your stories about infiltrating male professional networks. Facilitators, submit your own accounts of giving women a leg up. Submit your stories here on GOOD’s Tumblr, on Twitter with the #promotewomen hashtag, or in the comments on our site. We’ll compile your stories and publish them as inspiration.

We have the power to end the gender gap. Take five minutes and send three emails to do something about it.

Curation via Storify from my editing class

The did some cool stories!

One on the top 10 tourist destination nations in the world. Another on the Megaupload controversy.

For the Colorado-centric, here’s one on the hot legislative controversy of the week. And the tale of Boulder’s efforts to split from Xcel Energy.

Meanwhile, my effort to gather up fashionable bicycle accessories is pretty lame. i need to work on it!

Fundraising in Colorado congressional races

i’m working on gathering the information and producing a map, in case subscribers to INews Network would like to use it. i’ll be updating during the day - except when i’m teaching!

Chuck Grassley’s Twitter hacked…

didn’t think quickly enough to spotify, but did take some screengrabs…