Today at Boot Camp, we heard from three speakers, all who discussed the broadcast side of news on some level. The most important lesson I learned today, though, is that the print/broadcast dichotomy has disappeared from journalism altogether.
Jim Asendio
The first speaker was Jim Asendio, the WAMU news director. Asendio wasted no time in telling us that as journalists, “you carry skillsets with you. The more things you know how to do, the more salable, portable you are.”
Asendio said that we ought to use our time at the School of Communication in two ways. First, we should develop as many skillsets as we could, through audio, video, web, and text.
“You can’t just be a great writer or a great shooter, you’ve got to do it all,” he said.
Second, he said we should be making as many contacts in the journalism world as possible.
“The more contacts you make now, the better it is for you,” he said.
Professor Olmsted talking to Rawand Darwesh on speaker phone.
Next, we called an SOC alum in Iraq, Rawand Darwesh, for a phone interview.
Darwesh doesn’t currently hold a job in journalism right now (he works for the Iraqi government) but he said, “Sometimes I am so far from journalism that it hurts.”
Darwesh talked to us about how Iraq is portrayed in the media, both in Iraq and America. He said Americans see Iraq through the media as a totally war torn country, but the area of Iraq Darwesh lives in is “peaceful and totally untouched by war.”
The lesson here?
“Journalism is a responsibility,” he said. “You must report all sides of a story.”
Keosha Johnson
Third, we heard from SOC alum Keosha Johnson. Johnson, who has worked for NBC, AARP, and The Today Show, echoed Asendio’s message about these changing times.
“It’s changing. Now if I say I want to do journalism, I want to do everything that involves,” she said.
Though Johnson was chosen for an extremely competitive internship at NBC last year, she had some sobering words for us.
“Know you’re going to fail,” she said. “I applied for 20 positions, and got called for one.”
However, Johnson said we can up out chances of getting a job out of school by getting lots of experience. Johnson said she herself did several internships while at SOC, and also freelanced for a fashion blog. She said graduate school is not about your GPA, it’s about your experience in the field.
“You have to know how to do everything and want to do everything if you want a job,” she said.
A well-written post. What could you have done to make it more scanable (subheads? bullet points? numbered lists?)?
Personally, I think the photos could be laid out in a more pleasing manner.