Days since graduation: 45

The recession and dire state of print media are my excuses for my stagnant life as a recent college graduate, although it’s probably not much different than the experiences of most other graduates throughout the years. I wake up around 10 a.m., have a leisurely breakfast, consider then discard the idea of going to the gym, passively troll the Internet for job openings, apply to jobs I know 4,000 people have already applied to from Craigslist, collapse on the couch for an afternoon marathon of Law and Order.

That was a bit dramatic. I do occasionally emerge from my house. I have been freelancing for The Stamford Advocate and have received several great assignments from my very kind editor there. I know I’m lucky, many fellow students have had zero work since graduation. Nevertheless, the freelancing life is like an emotionally abusive relationship. One week, it’s great. They call every day, you hang out all the time and you feel like this is true love. Then the next week, nothing. The week after that, they invite you at the last minute to a high school graduation and you think, maybe you’re getting back together. It’s a painful cycle.

I have been exploring temporary employment outside of the journalism field in order to make some money this summer, but I know reporting is ultimately what I want to do. Luckily, I got some motivation this afternoon when I attended a panel at Thomson Reuters at Time Square in Manhattan. The global managing editor, Betty Wong, was kind enough to meet with me for a few minutes beforehand. The fascinating thing about Reuters is that while all the other news companies seem to be laying off employees, they’re hiring! It made me wish I had a background in business reporting. Perhaps I will begin reading Businessweek.

The event was amazing, and not just because there was an open bar. I was on the 30th floor of a building in Times Square that overlooked Manhattan and I was surrounded by important people in the industry. I highly encourage any aspiring reporters to attend events like this if they can. Jump on any connections you might be able to find (I met Wong through our hairdresser). In addition to learning a lot from the panel discussion, the event was also a great networking opportunity. I was a little nervous, and didn’t get a chance to hand out any of the resumes I had brought with me, but I did get practice approaching people and talking about the industry. I’m sure the next time I’m in a situation like this, I will be much more confident and assertive.

The panel itself comprised four media experts. Chrystia Freeland, U.S. managing editor for the Financial Times, floated the idea that newsrooms need to downsize and specialize their coverage rather than paying for hundreds of reporters to canvass every aspect of current events. Lawrence Ingrassia, business and financial editor for the New York Times, said that some newsrooms can stay competitive by offering specialized coverage that isn’t available in the rush to break news first. As an example, he mentioned that while the entertainment Web site TMZ broke the story of Michael Jackson’s death at age 50, the Times was able to provide a rich and detailed obituary of the entertainer’s life, which Ingrassia said was still of interest even though it was published the next day.

Sree Sreenivasan, professor and dean of student affairs at Columbia Journalism school, said that applications to graduate school are up 40 percent this year. He attributed this to the recession and troubles facing the news industry. The fourth panelist, MediaBistro.com founder and senior vice president Laurel Touby, said that the personal and professional is merging in an unprecedented way in the newsroom. Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Flickr may originate as personal diversions, but often overlap into the professional career as well. While this worries many people, Touby said that this reporters shoudl embrace this and try their hands at any type of multimedia that they come across.

This post is getting really long. I’m sorry. I’m excited, it’s been a long time. Stay tuned for some updates from Kala.

Julie Sprengelmeyer, an associate editor at the Journal Inquirer, gives some tips for journalism job interviews.

· Dress as if you want the job

Dress up, don’t wear jeans.

“When you work at a paper, you have to be prepared to go to a funeral or a court proceeding and you have to dress appropriately,” Sprengelmeyer said. “We can’t have people thinking you’re the defendant when you go to court.”

· Have knowledge of the newspaper. Find out what they do, the towns they cover and they types of stories they write.

Even though you are supposed to ask questions, be sure to research the newspaper ahead of time. If you can’t take the initiative to find out the circulation and other information about the publication, why would they want to hire you?

· Be enthusiastic

If you don’t show any spark of life, you’re not going to be someone editors want to see in the field. A lot of journalism is building relationships with people, even if it’s fleeting. To get people to talk, they have to like you to some degree. You need to have some sort of outgoing personality, even if you’re shy. If you come across with an enthusiasm to do what you’re doing, that’s fine. Being able to make the interviewer like you is important. Make the interviewer feel confident that you can do the job.

· Have coffee, not water

It’s important to be calm and show confidence. You have one shot to impress your potential employers, and being nervous or jittery will show that you may not have the confidence to be a journalist, especially since journalism is based on talking to people.

· Always bring the conversation back to you

If you ask your interviewer – or they tell you – what kind of stories they like to see, give them an example of your work. The idea is to let them know what kind of work you have done and how your experience will help them.

· Be diligent

Cultivate sources at newspapers just as you would while covering a community. It’s important to keep in touch with people you interview with, especially if you’re interviewing at a place where there are no job openings. Call executive editors and ask them if there are any openings, even if you haven’t seen any. Tell them you will send clips and then follow up in a few weeks. Even if there are no immediate openings, there will be someday and being the first to get your resume and clips in is usually beneficial.

What to ask at an interview:

What is expected of me in terms of production?

What are the hours?

What are you seeking to get across to your audience?

What audience is the publication looking to reach?

Asking about pay, benefits and days off

It’s not considered good form to ask about compensation at a first interview. If you’re going to have a second interview or further talks about the job, ask then. If you do want to bring it up (either at a first or second interview), ask who you can ask about compensation. If your interviewer is the one who is in charge of that decision, he or she will tell you. If not, he or she will direct you to where you need to go to find out.

Tip:

The best way to answer the question “what is your greatest weakness” is to turn it into a positive. For example, tell them you tend to take on too many tasks because you want to get a lot done. However, you should supplement it by telling the interviewer that you always get it done.

This is my last post on TheFirstByline that will count toward my honors thesis. Kala and I have discussed keeping the blog going after graduation and I hope we do. For now, though, this is it.

A few weeks ago, I read an article in the New York Times about how journalism schools across the country are struggling to keep up with the world of online journalism. Given the challenges facing the news industry, the article asked, why are more students than ever signing up to be journalism majors?

The question struck a chord with me so I decided to interview 20 people, including Kala and myself, to see why they decided to go into journalism. Their responses are below in a video montage that I like to watch whenever I get discouraged about the tough job market. Journalism has never been a secure or high-paying job, but we all got into it anyway. I think it’s important, when things get tough, to remember why. Enjoy.

Roger Cohen, a columnist for The New York Times and the International Herald Tribute, writes about international politics regarding foreign policy with such countries as Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and more. Cohen came to the University of Connecticut on Tuesday to discuss some of his views on American foreign policy with Iran as well as other Middle Eastern countries. Toward the end, Cohen veered off topic and touched on the status of newspapers, citizen journalism and the free flow of information, which is what I tuned in to.

Roger Cohen started his political talk with a plea.

“Start, please, buying newspapers,” he said.

The New York Times employees recently took a five percent cut in pay, according to Cohen. Even though NYTimes.com is probably the most popular newspaper Web site, the rise in online advertising revenue is not enough to offset the dip in circulation revenue.

The essential question, Cohen posed, is how will newspapers sustain themselves?

Cohen said everything produced by The New York Times is available online for free.

“So we have an issue and we have not yet found the solution,” Cohen said.

Cohen said the dilemma rises when competing with other newspapers. If NYTimes.com made readers pay to read stories, the Wall Street Journal – one of the Times biggest competitors – would probably make their content free (as of now, they charge for stories).

Cohen said he worries when he sees big cities like Seattle without a newspaper.

“Even as newspapers struggle, information is more and more freely available than ever before,” Cohen said.

When asked about citizen journalism and the threat to newspapers, Cohen reminded the audience that without national news organizations like the Times, bloggers would have nothing to write about.

Cohen said citizen journalists don’t have the means break the kinds of stories national newspapers do.

“American journalism practiced at its highest level is a great and important thing,” Cohen said.

Another student asked about the ways he’s seen technology change throughout his 30 years experience as a journalist.

When Cohen started reporting, he was sent to Beruit, Lebanon, in 1982.  He would file by Telex - a machine that used rotary-telephone-style pulse dialing to send out data. The hotel he used to stay at was known as having a functioning Telex machine with broken toilets everywhere, he joked.

Cohen would tell his editors he was going into the mountains and would be in touch in three or four days. Today, Cohen explained, that’s not the case.

Technology allows people to be in several places at once online, and also allows them to be engaged in several conversations.

“Journalism today is much more of a conversation,” Cohen said, adding that before the Internet, the news was on your front porch, you’d read it, and if you didn’t like it, too bad.

Today, within minutes of publishing or posting articles online, there is instant feedback, Cohen said. Journalism, as a result of this back and forth conversation, has been democratized.

However, as a columnist, it’s sometimes hard for Cohen to have come up with two original ideas a week. He sometimes shuts himself out so he can think.

After Cohen was finished at the podium, I went up to ask him a few questions of my own, including the question every young journalist wants answered: how does someone get to a newspaper as great as The New York Times?

Cohen’s answer was not as informative as I’d hoped, but his answer offered some advice for young journalists.

“Go out there and do things,” Cohen said.

He said the best things are accomplished by doing it, not studying it in a classroom. Young journalists should develop a wide range of skills, particularly in something that is of interest to you because that’s when the best writing is produced.

I asked him if people who applied at The New York Times actually got jobs, or if they had to know someone.

“It’s highly competitive, but we’re always looking for talent,” he said.

Dave Hinchey, 25, who graduated from the University of Connecticut in 2005 with a degree in journalism, covers Windham for The Chronicle in Willimantic, Conn. Hinchey started his journalism career at a weekley newspaper in Wakefield, R.I., The NorthEast Independent.

Listen to Hinchey give career advice

Starting out

When Dave Hinchey began working his first job at The NorthEast Indepdent, he had somewhat of a difficult time.

While at the weekly paper, Hinchey said he was expected to develop deeper stories with more research and sources.

Hinchey said his boss at the weekly was harsh – not in a good or bad way – and learned a lot from her.

“It was a very tight-run ship and she wanted everything delivered on time, everything accurate, well-researched and expansive,” Hinchey said.

She often found “deficiencies” – such as AP style mistakes – in his writing and would tell him what he did wrong, sometimes in front of the whole newsroom.

“College only prepares you for so much,” Hinchey said. “The skill I lacked the most coming out was being able to go to a meeting, come back, write the story, and hash it out quickly.”

However, Hinchey said by the time he left the paper to go to The Chronicle, he was ready to keep up with the pace of a daily newspaper.

“I like the pace of the daily because you’re only as good as your last issue,” Hinchey said. “At the weekly, you have the time to put it in the drawer and let it simmer, go back, and make revisions. It’s a slower pace.”

Hinchey when you’re put in a situation where you don’t know a lot of background, like a meeting in a town you haven’t been covering, you have to put aside fears of looking stupid and ask a simple question if you need to. Even if you think the question may have an obvious answer, it’s nearly impossible to write about something if you don’t understand it in the first place.

“You have to be [able to be] dropped in any situation and come out with a story that’s informative, accurate and fair,” Hinchey said. “That’s a skill that I lacked when I came out – being able to know what was going on and follow what was going on.”

“[College gives] you the basic skill set so you can survive but after, there’s still other things you need to apply,” he said.

Hinchey also said getting clips in college is important. If you apply for jobs and have nothing to show them, chances are, you won’t get a job.

“You need to somehow find some real-world experience,” Hinchey said.

Journalism and making a living

Hinchey said the schedule working at a newspaper is hectic, and some days are better than others.

Hinchey said a good story that’s going to blow the lid off the town – the stuff he, and most other journalists, love – is what gets him up in the morning. The other stuff, like meetings and other mundane but necessary stories, is not what makes you want to get up, he said.

Hinchey said if journalists were paid more, there would be floods of applicants.

The problem with journalism, he said, is that the world needs good journalists, but at what point do you quit the profession because of the pay?

Hinchey said he equates journalists with public servants. Even though newspapers are privately owned, they still provide a service for the community.

Hinchey, who has worked at The Chronicle for three years, said he makes about $31,200 a year before taxes, health care and 401K money is taken out – which ends up being about $145 out of his paycheck each week. However, when he started, he made about $25,000 gross pay. He does have the potential for overtime.

Starting salaries are very low, he said, but there were opportunities for raises at his paper. Hinchey said pay raises are not always as fast as some would like, but they do exist and it’s not impossible to live on a reporter’s salary when you’re young.

On the weekends, Hinchey works in retail so he isn’t “in the poorhouse” if his car breaks down or something else happens, even though he said he could get by on his salary.

To put his living situation into perspective, Hinchey said his rent, which he shares with another roommate, is $750 total, and for utilities and cable, he pays about $150 a month. In addition, he pays about $350 a month in college loans.

“There’s a light at the end of the tunnel and that’s what I have to keep saying,” he said.

Hinchey said pay is really what drives people in and out of the field. Everyone will tell you journalism is a noble career, and they may be right, Hinchey said.

“Unfortunately, the world runs on dollars and cents. Yes, the feeling I get from journalism is great. I feel I’m serving the community,” Hinchey said. “At the end of the day, you need to look out for number one.”

Hinchey said despite what some people may think, there’s no shame in switching to a career that has better pay, or even switching to public relations, Hinchey said, adding that even if you’re just out of college, you’re an adult and eventually may have a family to feed.

Hinchey said he ultimately wants to go into public relations because what he values most about journalism is writing, communicating and building relationships – and those can be applied to public relations.

Hinchey started in journalism so he could understand it before trying to get into public relations.

“I needed to get the news experience,” Hinchey said. “You don’t just go in and get your dream job at will. You need to put the time in.”

Hinchey also said he wants to own a home and be able to take vacations. If he were to have kids, he’d want to work a 9 to 5 job with more structure.

Hinchey said he understands when people say they “do it for the mortgage.”

He also understands that it’s difficult for a lot of reporters – whether they are already in the field or entering the field – to make decisions about their journalism careers because of the pay.

Just because you have a degree in journalism doesn’t mean you can’t do something else, Hinchey said.

Hinchey said what he values about his journalism degree is that it gave him a skill set he could apply in the real world – whether it be in journalism or some other field. Writing, communicating and building relationships is what Hinchey believes is the most important part of his job – and they are also skills that can be applied to a variety of professions.

Chris Preovolos is a photographer at The Stamford  Advocate, a local daily newspaper in Stamford, Conn. He has worked there since he graduated from San Jose State University in California in 2003. Preovolos works on two blogs for the Advocate, In Sight, a photographic journal, and The Lunch Break Chronicles, which explores local food and restaurants. While citizen journalism can be a valuable tool, Preovolos worries that it may lead to a “cheapening” of photojournalism and an erosion of journalism ethics.

When you decided to become a photojournalist, what was your perception of the industry?

At the time it really wasn’t (in trouble) and I don’t think anyone really anticipated it. Even though my university was in San Jose, which was essentially the seat of Silicon Valley, we were really oriented toward print journalism. Everybody was pretty enthusiastic about the future of newspapers.

Did college prepare you for the modern news industry?

I think it really is important, even now, to have an education in the basics. Now that I’m starting to do some blog writing, I kind of wish that I had had a little bit more experience with writing. Particularly newswriting. I don’t remember a whole lot from my beginning newswriting class, to be frank. I think it would be a lot more useful now than it was at the time, now that everyone’s talking about conversions and doing all these different things, multimedia and the Web, photography and video.

After working as a photojournalist for six years, what is your perception of the industry now?

I still have hope for it because people, I think, even though they’re used to getting everything for free on the Internet, I think they can also tell the difference between the blogs and the amateur stuff out there and what we produce. It’s fairly evident.

But I’m concerned at the same time with almost the cheapening of journalism. There’s always been a fairly clear division of labor in the newsroom. Before we had money to employ people who were specialized. Now we’re seeing that go away. It’s very hard to do everything at once. I’m being asked to work in multimedia and that kind of thing. Everything suffers a bit. You can’t do everything well. Especially at a daily newspaper with the deadlines. You don’t have a lot of time.

Citizen photojournalism and the photo-sharing Web site Flickr have been around for several years - what effect have they had on the professional photojournalism industry?

It’s very useful in certain situations, like the attacks in Mumbai and also the U.S. Airways crash in the Hudson. It’s good for that sort of thing, but I think for the day-to-day coverage of the news, especially at a local newspaper, it’s going to be very difficult to replace what (professional photographers) to. It does provide, in some ways, coverage that wasn’t possible before. But I think we should cautiously embrace it. The quality is definitely not the same. You have people who are not trained in journalism and completely unaware of any ethical implications of what they may be doing. I think that’s one of the most important things that we think about when we go about our work. And that’s of great value to the reader.

Will anything be lost when photojournalism switches from print newspapers to completely online viewing? Can photojournalists achieve the same impact with a photograph that’s on the computer screen as one that’s held in someone’s hands on printed paper?

To be honest with you, I don’t read the newspaper in print. I read it online, even my own newspaper. I think if (the Internet) is used properly it can have a lot of impact. Using audio and video, combining it with stills, it can have perhaps more impact. We see a lot of people at a lot of other organizations who haven’t adapted to it and use it poorly online. Having a photo on a story that’s 300 pixels wide doesn’t really add up to a whole lot.

We have to make sure everything that we shoot ends up on the Web site. You need to run photos large online. The thing is, with print it was always fighting for space. With the Internet, it’s unlimited and I don’t think that every organization’s necessarily grasping that. And there’s some technical reasons for that in terms of server storage. But you can do anything you want online in terms of space and size and audio and visual. So why not do it?

I’ve been reading about a new trend where you take stills from videos and use them as photographs - what’s your opinion on this?

There’s two things that I think come to mind immediately. One is, I think that will be the future but I don’t think the technology is up to it right now. We use high-definition video cameras but under many circumstances the quality suffers if you’re going to grab stills. But I see in the next five to 10 years that becoming much more common. In some ways it’s good because it allows you to be much more efficient.

The other thing is, still photography is steeped in the tradition of the decisive moment. And that’s kind of the way we think when we’re approaching an assignment or an event. And that’s really, really lost with video. It just really takes that away from the photographer, if you have three frames a second that you can grab from. And that’s really what devalues the photograph.

Do you have any tips for students interested in photojournalism?

The most important thing is to just shoot as much as you can, wherever you go to always have a camera with you. You just have to have an eye for it. And if you don’t have an eye for it, you’ll figure that out pretty quickly.

Definitely learn video and audio. I think students now are in a much better position than I was or that I am because I’m self-teaching. I’m having to figure this all out for myself without any real training and without the benefit of classes or professors. So figure this out while you’re in school, because then you get out here and there’s no one to help you.

If you knew in college all the challenges the industry would be facing in the future, would you still have decided to become a photojournalist?

I was so focused on it at the time that I don’t know what else I would have done. Now, a lot of people are changing careers but I have no clue what I would do. I’ve enjoyed it and I don’t really regret it. But I still need to pay my rent.

So far TheFirstByline.com has made Kala and me $0. This is because right now we are using Google AdSense, a program where you really need a very large viewership (more than the seven people I estimate read this blog) in order to pull in any money.

According to UConn Assistant Professor-in-Residence and blogger Rick Hancock, however, some people make a lot of money, sometimes six figures, off their blogs.

“You can create revenue on your blog in a lot of different ways,” he said.

One advertising program available to bloggers is Amazon Affiliates. This program is free to join. When an associate blogger creates a link that a viewer clicks on and then buys an Amazon product from, the associate can earn up to 15 percent in referral fees. To create these ads, the blogger creates links to any page they want on Amazon.com or Endless.com. The blogger is in control of the advertisements that appear on their site, allowing them to target their readers specifically. For more information, click here.

Right now, we use advertisements from Google AdSense on TheFirstByline. This is a Google service that places ads on your Web site and you are paid based on how often people click on the ads. You must first launch your Web site and have a decent amount of content on it before you can apply to add Google advertisements to it. There is no cost to apply for AdSense. You are paid either by cost-per-click, meaning you receive some money every time someone clicks on an advertisement displayed on your page, or cost-per-1,000- impressions, meaning you are paid when the advertisement is displayed on your Web site. You are paid monthly by Google once your account has a minimum balance of $100 in it. It’s very easy to get started with this, although I had some trouble embedding it in Wordpress. To check it out, click here.

We are also experimenting with Google AdWords and Facebook Ads. These are services that the blogger has to pay for. When we signed up for our hosting site, NetFirms Inc., we were given $50 in credit for each service. We decided to try it out. For both programs, you create your own advertisement that is show on other Web sites, for Facebook Ads the advertisement appears on people’s Facebook pages. I liked the way the Facebook ad looked because it allowed us to include a picture. However, as of right now Google AdWords is the only service that is working for us. We have spent $24.35 on 456,063 impressions and 28 clicks to our Web site. The program also has a spending limit that you can set yourself, so I will not be charged more than $50 per month. Unfortunately, there was a problem with our $50 in credit for Faceboook advertisements. I’ve spent a good deal of time talking with customer support at both Netfirms and Facebook, but the problem is still not solved. Check out Google Adwords here and Facebook Ads here.

If you are just starting out, the easiest way to kick off advertising is using Google AdSense. It’s free and gives you a sense on how online advertisements work. I found this video on YouTube that might give you a good introduction on making your site advertisement-friendly. It was put together by the Australian Google AdSense team.

My experiments with online advertising has made me realize even more the challenges facing the news industry in terms of finding ways to make money off online journalism. If anyone knows of better ways to create revenue from your blog, please let us know!

You may have noticed some advertisements infiltrating TheFirstByline.com. My next blog post will explain the different advertisements available to bloggers and how to use them. First, however, I’d like to explore the ethical issues that accompany advertising online.

I spent a lot of time last weekend struggling with Google Ads. I wanted to put them on the side of the blog, where they are now, but I could only figure out how to embed them within a post. So I did that, figuring it was better than nothing. When I looked at the blog the next day, however, I saw that the advertisement was a recruitment for Christian journalists. It also didn’t say “advertisement,” above the ad, so it looked like my post was trying to recruit Christian journalists for newsrooms nationwide. I worried that the readers might not be able to tell the banner was an advertisement, since it was not clearly marked as one, so I took it down. I think that, as in newspapers, advertisements on blogs and Web sites need to be clearly marked. Otherwise, you may unintentionally give the impression of bias or leaning to the reader.

Maureen Croteau, head of the Journalism Department at the University of Connecticut, said she worries about the lack of separation between the news and advertising aspects of blogs. Newspapers have advertising departments, which deal with conflicts and investigate questionable promotions. This does not exist online, which could lead to misleading or unethical advertisements appearing on your blog, Croteau said.

“No one who’s running a blog has the opportunity to investigate every single ad,” she said.

Croteau also said she sees ethical issues with services such as Amazon Associates, where you choose which products to advertise on your Web site based on what you think your readers would be interested in. If someone clicks on your blog’s advertisement and buys the product, you get a portion of the profit.

“As soon as you get paid because someone clicks on a reference in your story, it has to make the reader realize how biased you are,” Croteau said.

Google AdSense is less of an ethical dilemma, Croteau said. This service (which we use on this blog) shows advertisements based on the content of your blog. You choose where to place the ads, but you cannot control what the ads are.

“I think so long as the person doing the blog can’t manipulate (the ads) by posting something to get AdSense hits, then that’s fine,” Croteau said.

Assistant Professor-in-Residence and blogger Rick Hancock, however, said that Google AdSense presents more ethical problems than affiliate programs like Amazon Associates. Hancock used to use AdSense on his blog but took it down, partly because he wasn’t making much money off it and partly because he felt uncomfortable not having any control over what advertisements were shown. Hancock said he didn’t like ads for shady services like diploma mills appearing on his blog.

Hancock said affiliate programs are just part of the business side to online journalism.

“We have to figure out how to pay for good journalism and the old way of classifieds … they aren’t as successful as they were in the past,” he said. “The public, if they are confused, if they are hoodwinked - I think they have to decide of the coverage is being skewed.”

Hancock said he doesn’t see ethical problems with affiliate programs so long as reporters aren’t intentionally writing glowing reviews of the products they are affiliated with in order to encourage people to buy them.

“You still have to use good judgment and exercise good taste,” he said. “But I just don’t think being an Amazon Affiliate is the worst thing in the world.”

Croteau agreed that advertising is necessary to keep Internet news sustainable but said she hopes online reporters will be able to maintain some degree of separation between the business and reporting sides of their jobs.

“I think with a lot of these online advertisers, we’re going to have to find a middle ground in the next several years,” she said.

Today, TheFirstByline only has clearly marked AdSense advertisements in the left hand column, removed from the text of the post. I agree that it would go against journalism ethical standards to manipulate your blog posts in order to profit off your advertisements, but I’m not sure how I feel about affiliate programs. What do you think?

This semester I wrote a story for my feature writing class that my professor suggested I try to get published. This sounded great in theory, but in reality the idea of contacting people and pitching my story to them was pretty terrifying. Luckily, my professor kept on me about it and this week I started the process. If you’ve written something for class or just for fun, you should try to get it published. Not only will it look great on your resume, but you might get paid as well!

Here are some tips my professor had for getting started with selling your stuff. Timothy Kenny is an associate journalism professor at the University of Connecticut. He worked in news for 23 years, including as foreign editor at USA Today.

Hear Professor Kenny’s advice on stories you can sell…

…And how to sell them:

What you can sell:
Stories about emerging trends or fads as well as interesting feature ideas are always marketable, Kenny said. Young journalists should also be aware that stories about people in their own age bracket usually interest editors.

“I try to tell people who are students that any time they can come up with something that’s going to be an explanation or a translation of your world into the regular adult world, that’s probably something that people are going to buy,” Kenny said.

Consider the publication:
Reporters need to tailor their story to fit the outlet they are submitting it to, Kenny said. The tone, voice and style of your story needs to correspond to the publication. Kenny recently submitted a story to the national magazine Toddler about his experience as a father. Before he sent the story off, he read the magazine to get a feel for its writing style. Had he written a story about the same topic for somewhere else, like a newspaper’s op-ed page, he would have written it completely differently, with more interviews and statistics and less emotions and anecdotes.

Pitch stories to your local newspapers:
“Write about people in your local town,” Kenny said. “You might know a story that’s happening in that town. If there’s a local news outlet, newspapers especially - it doesn’t matter if it’s a weekly or daily - they’re going to be interested. Especially as they’re cutting back on staff. Freelance pieces that aren’t going to cost them very much are going to be readily accepted.”

Multimedia stories sell better:
When pitching your story to an editor, it always helps to be able to offer photographs or video footage in addition to your written product, Kenny said. Stories that are Web friendly will also be attractive to editors.

“If you can package it for both news outlets, that’s going to be another huge selling point as well,” Kenny said.

Use the telephone to contact editors
It’s much harder to hang up on someone than it is to delete an e-mail, Kenny said. Try to get editors on the phone to pitch them your story. This may take some persistence.
“My best recommendation is not to just ship off an e-mail that may or may not be looked at, but to actually get on the phone and call people,” Kenny said. “People will always talk to you. It’s not that hard. You have to call back maybe a few times but once you reach someone, people will want to talk to you.”

I finally worked up the nerve to call editors at Quill, the American Society of News Editors and the Columbia Journalism Review last week. The only person I’ve gotten in touch with so far is from ASNE. She said that while they can’t pay me, she’d like to take a look at my story. I sent it off to her on Thursday.

Has anyone else successfully sold their stuff? Let me know how you did it!

I attended a very interesting press conference at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) in New Britain Wednesday afternoon. For full coverage of the event, check out my story published in today’s Daily Campus here. Otherwise, here’s a short summary of the situation:

Last month, CCSU’s student newspaper, The Recorder, fired Opinion Editor Marissa Blaszko. The reason they gave was that Blaszko’s prominent campus activism is a conflict of interest. Blaszko participates in anti-war rallies both on and off campus and is also a member of the CCSU club Youth for Socialist Action. Blaszko and her supporters say her firing is an attack against her radical views and a suppression of freedom of speech. Many leaders of minority groups on campus spoke on her behalf, as well as a math professor, sociology professor and representative from the National Lawyers Guild.

The Recorder would not comment Wednesday, but referred reporters to a statement published in their April 8 issue, which says Blaszko was fired because her prominent campus activism makes the paper appear biased and unobjective. I spoke to a CCSU journalism professor, Anthony Cannella, about the issue. He told me that Blaszko’s firing was not an attack against her political views, but rather a reaction against her violation of the paper’s ethics code. According to the code, paper employees in editor positions are required to avoid public activism in order to preserve objectivity.

Blaszko wants to be reinstated as opinion editor and will take her case to CCSU’s media board Friday. When I went into the press conference on Wednesday, this seemed to me like a no-brainer. Even if Blaszko is the opinion editor, it’s a conflict of interest for a journalist to be heavily involved in political or activist activities. While I stand by this opinion, the press conference nevertheless brought up some very interesting questions.

Should student reporters be only student reporters? We all know that professional journalists should avoid conflicts of interest like the ones Blaszko has encountered. But do the same rules apply to student reporters? Should they be allowed the opportunity to explore all the organizations and different groups of people their school has to offer?

Does the fact that The Recorder is university funded weigh into this situation at all? Blaszko and her supporters say that because the paper receives $30,000 in university funds each year, they are accountable to the students. Also, because CCSU is a state school, Blaszko’s supporters say the paper’s action violates freedom of speech. The issue of funding seems to make the situation trickier and really, is a conflict of interest by itself.

What happens after a paper violates the public trust? The Recorder has been at the center of several controversies over the last few years. In 2007, the paper came under fire for running a cartoon that depicted a Latino girl tied up in a closet and forced to drink urine. Also that year, an editorial ran describing rape as a “magical experience” that “only hurts if you fight it.” Two years later, Blaszko’s firing is seen by minority leaders on campus as yet another blow against the student body by The Recorder. While different people are in charge of the paper, the incidents in 2007 illustrate the long lasting effects editorial decisions have on a paper’s reputation and credibility.

What do you think about the controversy at CCSU? Leave comments here or shoot me an e-mail at Katherine@TheFirstByline.com.