A Florida Girl in a Texas World

For those of you who subscribe, I’m sorry for the lack of updates. I posted regularly before accepting my first staff position, after several years of interning and freelancing, at a newspaper in sunny New Port Richey, Florida. I was exuberant. The position was in my own background, doing what I’ve aspired to do for 12 years- covering a community I love as a regular staff reporter.

This past May, I was called into a meeting by my editor. I never dreamed of what came next. The man in the suit was matter-of-fact. “Today is your last day. You’re being laid off as part of a recent round of budget cuts. Here’s the severance package paperwork. Give it a couple days to look over then sign and return it.”

My editor sat off on the sideline. Silent. Clenching his jaw. 

Another man escorted me back to my office and watched me as I packed my things and fought back tears. He confiscated my press pass. I wasn’t allowed to say goodbye to anyone. He walked me out to my car and wished me luck. I sat inside the boiling hot Prius for 20 minutes shaking and crying so hard that I knew it wasn’t safe for me to drive.

Then I put the car in drive and went home. My email access had already been cut off. I made a couple phone calls to cancel interviews for that afternoon and weekend. I donned my “Journalists get laid (off)” shirt and cried myself to sleep on my couch.

For those of you who are journalists, you know that losing a job is more than just losing a paycheck. That day, I struggled to retain my identity as a person. I live and breathe journalism. I carry a reporter’s notebook and pen at all times, I have voice recording and pro photography apps on my phone in case of breaking news, and all my sources have my personal cell number. When you lose that, and are treated like a criminal no less, you lose more than the ability to pay your bills. You lose a sense of self.

The Florida unemployment system is a nightmare. My measly two week’s pay severance package meant an additional two weeks I’d have to wait for my benefits check. It took five weeks to finally come and only covered my car expenses and electric bill. My boyfriend had to pay my rent, my cell phone, my gas and food. It was bad enough haveing to accept the money. It was worse knowing that so many people were in the same situation and the liklihood of landing another job near home was slim. That day alone 60-something employees of Tampa Media Group, which owns the Tampa Tribune and its supplements like my own paper, were let go. Thousands of unemployed journalists are circulating Florida journalism job boards like hawks waiting to swoop down on the one mouse that might appear in their lonely stretch of territory. 

Once again, JournalismJobs.com yielded a job opportunity and four months later, I find myself in small-town Marshall, Texas, an employee of the Marshall News Messenger. I have a pretty stellar resume and clips and put in hundreds of applications. Only Texas called me back and I’ve had to sacrifice every aspect of my life to further my career.

My newborn nephew, all my sisters and one set of parents, my fiance. They all had to stay home in Florida. I’m making less than I made at the Suncoast News and even less than I made at my internship in college. I can’t afford cable. My fiance is paying my cell phone bill. I’m leaching off a neighbor for wi-fi, that precious nectar of life so necessary for journalists. I have a credit card I maxed out on bills when I was unemployed and now I can only afford the minimum payment. No one is getting anything for Christmas this year. The local comic book store sucks and I had to get rid of my beloved brightly-colored hair in exchange for my natural blonde.

But I’m doing journalism. Starting Monday, I’ll once again be giving voice to the voiceless and (I hope), making a difference in my community. It’s a small daily newspaper with lots of “Areas of Opportunity” as my fiance would say. Once again, I’ll be hitting the pavement, crowdsourcing, and scouring social media to find diamonds to harvest out of the rough. I’m exhilarated. I’m devastated. At least now, I have my identity back.

My Turning Point: From Print Journalism to Visual Storytelling

I knew when I was 14 that I wanted to be a journalist.

After the first week of Journalism I at Chamberlain High School in Tampa, I came home and told my mother I would be Editor-In-Chief one day. The following year, as a sophomore, I was the Op/Ed Editor. I spent my junior and senior years as Editor-In-Chief/slash Sports Editor (We had a staff full of stereotypical girls, bless ’em, and noooo one wanted to edit the sports pages). But it was really at the Florida Scholastic Press Association district and state conventions that I found my niche.

The guest most years at the state conventions in those days was Les Rose, a photojournalist for CBS News. At that time, I had fallen into the same broadcast-hating mindset that most newspaper journalists had. While many newsrooms were converged in 2004, online and mobile journalism was still taking hold. Twitter hadn’t been invented and Facebook was still only open to college students. I loathed watching local or network news on the television. I thought it was boring, ripped off stories already printed in the newspapers and added no depth.

Les Rose proved me wrong.

He and Steve Hartman were shooting the “Everybody Has A Story” series at the time, the point of which was to show that everybody, no matter who they are or where they’re from, has a story to tell. The dynamic duo threw a dart at the map of the United States and wherever it landed, they traveled there. opened a phonebook at random, and interviewed the first person to pick up the phone and give consent.

I’m reminded of this today because I mixed up my dates on a story I was supposed to cover and so I came back inside and Facebook stalked friends on my phone. I ran across a former editor’s page where she had posted a recent story from Steve Hartman’s current series “On the Road.” I bawled my way through countless stories and was reminded of the first time, 10 years ago this year, that I saw a Steve Hartman story on the screen and was so impressed, even through my tears, that it changed my outlook on journalism completely.

With a journalism degree under my belt and a masters on the horizon, I’ve learned that it’s not about being a newspaper journalist or a broadcast journalist or any other kind of journalist. It’s about choosing the medium that best tells a particular story. I once swore I’d never touch a videocamera and now I shoot both videos and still photos in addition to writing for print and online. I’ve even dabbled in infographics and mapping. I’m far from perfection and always will be but at least now, my journalism is enhanced by multimedia skills instead of crippled by a narrow mindset.

So a big thank you to Les, whom I still keep in touch with and occasionally see time to time, and to Hartman, whom I hope with all of my heart and soul that I get to meet in person one day. You guys are the best.

 

Finding Employment in Journalism

After more than two years of freelance work and two months of underemployment, I have finally landed a full-time reporter job at The Suncoast News, a twice-weekly newspaper and website that covers West Pasco and North Pinellas counties. I couldn’t be happier.

The search didn’t come easy. As anyone who has been unemployed knows, looking for a full-time job can BE a full-time job. I spent at least an hour a day for the past year checking various employment websites and signing up for email job alerts. Some of these jobs banks required me to keep up with my yearly membership dues to access. In the end, it came down to a daily email alert from the Employer Network that notified of the position within minutes of it being posted. I applied right away and within an hour, received an email from the editor about setting up an interview. Monday morning (yesterday), I had a successful interview, was introduced to much of the staff, received an email from the editor within two hours asking for references, and an hour after that, made an offer.

It can take a long time to find the right fit but when it happens, it happens fast.

Many of the job banks and alerts let you set up parameters for your search to narrow down the results you find or are sent. For my situation, I needed something within 50 miles and used the search words “journalist,” “reporter,” “multimedia,” “writer,” and “copywriter.” Employer Network found my new job through the term “reporter” on JournalismJobs.com, a website that I check daily. However, some employers move quickly and you may not see the post until that night or the next day and by that time, it’s been filled. I was able to jump on the opportunity because I got an alert through my email, which I obsessively check hourly.

Here are a few websites I used when looking for employment. Be sure to sign up for job alerts where they’re offered!

• Poynter.org job bank- requires a free profile on Poynter.
• JournalismJobs.com
• MediaBistro.com
• Society of Professional Journalists job bank- requires a paid membership
• National Press Photographers Association job bank- requires paid membership

Tips for finding open positions:

• Most journalist associations have a job bank you can access with membership. Check the websites of any organization you’re a member of for more information.

• Set up alerts when the option is available and specify key words related to your experience and the position you’re seeking. Also include geographuic information if you’re looking for a job in a particular state or zipcode.

• Network, network, network! Use contacts you’ve made at j-school or working for previous publications/editors to reach out to friends of theirs in the field. I did this to get a lot of my freelance jobs that helped me build the clips to get my full-time position.

• Google publications/TV stations/news sites, etc. in your area and find out how the managing editor or hiring manager is. Sent them a brief email asking about open staff or freelance positions and explain why you’d be a good fit for that employer. Be sure to attach your resume and relevant clips. A link to your online portfolio would be excellent.

Things to do before you apply for the job:

• Have a polished resume. If possible, find a friend or family member who works a job where they hire employees and have them look it over. Get advice on what an employer expects to see and what makes them delete it. Even better if said person is in journalism.

• In this online, multimedia age, you should really have an online portfolio hosting a resume, bio, multimedia clips, social media links and contact info. You can set up a basic portfolio site through websites like flavors.me and even wordpress.com. A more customized website will cost you money, especially if you have a domain name, but it’s a necessary expense. My domain name, www.daylinamiller.com, is $20 a year through GoDaddy. I pay $7 a month to host it on HostGator and I built it for free through iWeb.

• Clean up your social media. Don’t talk politics unless you approach it professionally, don’t curse, don’t post pictures of you drinking, smoking pot or engaging in illegal activities, and don’t diss previous employers. DO create a Facebook page for people to “like” instead of having them friend you, create a memorable but functioning Twitter bio and have your LinkedIn profile up-to-date. Also, keep in mind that privacy is never totally private online. Just because your profile is private and not searchable doesn’t mean the content can’t get out. People can take screenshots of photos and statuses and share them anywhere and with anyone. Also, even if you delete a Tweet, the Library of Congress saves EVERY tweet you send out so someone, somewhere, can access it. Think about what you type or post before you type and post it.

I’d love to hear what tips you have for searching for journalism jobs. Post a comment!

Defining Journalism and Beyond

What is journalism?

Journalism is cutting through the bullshit to the core of an issue. It’s about researching, fact-checking, analyzing and presenting information in an easy-to-digest format so that the world can stay informed. Journalism is also about giving voice to the voiceless and presenting that voice in a format best suited to the story- be it video, text , interactive graphics, charts, social media, etc.

“Journalism can never be silent: That is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph and the signs of horror are still in the air.”– Henry Anatole Grunwald.

Journalism is so vastly important to democracy and the exchange of information but with it comes pitfalls. We are on a 24/7 news cycle that never ceases to bombard audiences with both the wonder and the horror of the world around us.

As a working journalist myself, I’ve felt the exhaustion that comes with a duty and obligation to report issues in the community on a revolving-door basis. I’ve written about suicides immediately after the fact, drug busts as they are still happening and local protests as they are marching down the street. You have to be able to impose on someone’s privacy whilst still “minimizing harm” (Society of Professional Journalist’s Code of Ethics), and being sensitive to both a person’s grieving and celebration. Ultimately, you have to find the balance between reporting what others need to know, making sure your station/newspaper/website has no gaps in content and catering to today’s expectation for constant news and updates and this quote reminds me of that.

 My personal news consumption and sharing habits

To stay informed, as a journalist and as a news consumer and voter, I read several newspapers and websites a day, including my local Tampa Bay Times and national newspapers like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. I also curate content by category on Flipboard for the iPad and through Twitter lists to keep up on niche news like technology.

I share news relevant to my community on my Twitter, share my own news articles and link to articles about the ever-changing journalism industry on Twitter and other social media networks, as well as my own blog. When I was a budding journalist in high school (2003-2007), most of the current social media networks didn’t exist yet and those that did, like Facebook, were limited to specific users, like college students. I got most of my news from print editions of the Tampa Bay Times and Tampa Tribune delivered to my parents’ house and I didn’t have a phone that could do basic Internet, let alone all the functions of today’s smartphones. Now I consume most of my news through aggregation sites and apps, social media and via subscription to my iPad.

 Why does journalism matter?

Journalism matters because as Diane Douglas said in the Pew State of the News Media 2011 report: “It’s very frightening to think of those gaps and all the more insidious because you don’t know what you don’t know.”

Journalism not only caters to what people are interested in and know what they know they want to read about, but also presents them with vital information they had no idea was relevant and important to their lives. What’s terrifying, as media continues to decentralize and lose control to new technologies, and with “lower pay, more demands for speed, less training, and more volunteer work, there is a general devaluing and even what scholar Robert Picard has called a “de-skilling” of the profession,” that there are important areas of news not being covered.

The study gives local news as an example. Although companies like AOL have attempted to remedy this through hyperlocal news networks like Patch.com, the lack of a business model and ability to employ enough skillful journalists lead to less-than-stellar content and an inability to sustain itself long-term. The problem is, local journalism matters because it matters to the people in each community. What may not be important for someone in another state or even in another neighboring city to know may be of utmost importance to a small community. With less relevance comes less readership and fewer well- informed citizens. In the 2012 Pew study, it was pointed out that evidence emerged to show that newspapers are the primary news source people turn to for government and civic affairs. “If these operations continue to shrivel or disappear, it is unclear where, or whether, that information would be reported,” the study said. Without newspapers as the government watchdog, where will corruption be reported?

 

The future of journalism

From my New Media Communications discussion board –>”New Media Journalism news outlets are in a constant evolutionary state. The traditional business models are changing almost daily. When we look to the future 10, 20, even 50 years from now, it’s hard to predict how news will be disseminated, consumed and shared. There are a wide variety of possibilities.”

Assignment: Find a company, media outlet, website, or TV program that is using new media in a futuristic way. Provide a link to this site and provide at least three reasons why this outlet is a good model for the future of new media journalism.

 

Instead of referencing just one specific publication or site using new media in a futuristic way, I’d like to discuss a bundle of them under the category of “hyperlocal news,” which I believe is one aspect of news in the future. Gone are the days of most major cities having two major newspapers. Hyperlocal news fills in the holes in community news that city newspapers, national news stations, and the like, will never have the resources or interest to cover. What’s important to my community in the small town of New Port Richey, Florida may have no bearing to someone across the bay in St. Petersburg so the Tampa Bay Times doesn’t necessarily need to cover it. Online hyperlocal publications doesn’t just have to report on issues unique to that specific community. It can also approach national and international stories with a local angle, the old “small person, big story” approach.

Lets take AOL’s Patch for example.

Patch is backed by a bigger media company, AOL, but is made up of hundreds of hyperlocal sites or “patches,” that report on specific, smaller communities. I reported for several Patch sites in the Tampa Bay, mostly contributing to that in my own town. I covered stories of eccentric residents, local crime, city council initiatives, and more. If a story was relevant to all of the Tampa Bay, it could be syndicated on all the Tampa Bay patches. Local voices are brought in to cover specific topics through blogs. The Code Green Community founder writes about sustainability and environmental issues. The Deputy Mayor of New Port Richey, a self-professed geek and computer aficionado, writes about computer issue in laymen’s terms. Comments on the side are showcased in a sidebar and members of the community can sign up on the site and post local events to the calendar. There is also a directory of business and restaurants local to the community and links to articles on nearby Patch sites.

Each site is presided over by a full-time editor who has a background in professional journalism. That editor works with the freelancers and bloggers that contribute content to the site to ensure that the quality is acceptable. In terms of using new media in a futuristic way, Patch takes advantage of citizen journalists to paint a more complete picture of what’s happening in the community. They also take advantage of social media, especially Facebook and Twitter, to not only push content out and attract readers to the site but to engage the community in conversation about local issues. Each post includes hyperlinks, short, punchy reporting, photos, and often short videos, interactive maps and live chats. They also have a very nice mobile app that allows you to view and post content.

What Patch needs to work on, besides a better business model (like most news sites), is doing a better job of paying contributors, which will lead to better quality. The Huffington Post and other sites that use bloggers and content from citizen journalists have a terrible reputation for paying people very little, or nothing at all.

As far as self-sustainability goes, The Nieman Lab reported that there are hyperlocal sites out there, like Berkeleyside and the West Seattle Blog, that are posting profit, whereas Patch’s “800-plus sites generated just $13 million in revenue against $160 million in expenses.” Other sites, like the Netherland’s Dichtbij, are replicating and systemizing in a similar fashion as the Patch network but more profitably.

 

The Future of Journalism

How will information be disseminated and shared?

I believe that social media will continue to play a large role in both reporting and sharing information. The line between professional journalist and citizen journalist will continue to blur, although value will still be placed on journalism education and training, and real-world experience such as internships, freelancing, etc. While we can’t entirely predict the social media platforms that will eventually replace Facebook, Twitter, etc. or how long those will last, we can be sure that new methods of social interaction will be developed.

How will the audience contribute to information?

Via live-chats, threaded comments, platforms such as CNN’s iReport, engagement with traditional media via social media, and blogs.

What does the future new media outlet look like to you? 

 I believe the future of news media is online. There will be fewer and fewer distinctions between web journalist, broadcast journalist, newspaper journalist, etc. Journalists will be expected to be able to report the news on various platforms. While they may not be expected to be a jack-of-all trades, they will be expected to have multimedia skills and the ability to work with not only other journalists, as in the past, but with graphic designers, programmers, app developers, and more. Mobile reporting and news consumption will continue as smartphones advance even more and become more commonplace and news sites will need to develop mobile-friendly websites and companion apps. Citizen journalists will contribute more content and will even possibly be provided the legal protections via shield laws that protect “professional” journalists now.

Arguments for and against citizen journalism

This was an assignment for my graduate class. I’d love your opinions!

1. Why citizen bloggers CAN be considered journalists:

• Unless a “professional” journalist is fortunate to witness an event as it plays out from beginning to end, most of the accounts in their articles are going to be from people who did experience it first-hand. While a good journalist can accurately portray the events as they played out if they did their reporting and interviewing right, why not cut out the middle-man and compile news stories from people who were there? Poynter posted a Storify of tweets sent during the recent Aurora, Colorado shooting at the theatre during new Batman movie. No journalist could give a first-hand account that portrays the terror and horror these tweets do. During those few moments of hell and in the aftermath, those tweeters were citizen journalism reporting on their experiences. Mark Glaser wrote a great piece for MediaShift called Your Guide to Citizen Journalism that points out the “wide dispersion of so many excellent tools for capturing live events — from tiny digital cameras to videophones — the average citizen can now make news and distribute it globally, an act that was once the province of established journalists and media companies.” He even says that doing something like “fact-check a newspaper article from the mainstream media and point out factual errors or bias on your blog” can be a form of journalism. Just because journalists are watchdogs doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be watched, too. Checks and balances might make more journalists think twice about shoddy reporting. Citizen journalism is revolutioning the way people get, consume and PARTICIPATE in news, so much so that literature is finally hitting the stands- a Handbook for Citizen Journalists encourages professional journalists to understand the way that citizen journalism is changing the news industry.

• Examples of citizen journalists-  1. Jessica Silas for CNN iReport, who recorded the collapse of a stage at the Indiana State Fair. She got the stage collapsing on camera and the reactions of the people in the audience, something no newspaper or TV station could replicate. 2. Dan Gillmor wrote the first blog at a newspaper website and now runs the Center for Citizen Media.

2. Why citizen blogger’s CAN’T be considered journalists:

• Bloggers are not afforded the same First Amendment rights to freedom of the press that trained professionals are. At least in the eyes of the law, for now, you are not a journalist if you’re a blogger. Only “professional journalists,” defined by Florida Shield Law Fla. Stat. § 90.5015, is “a person regularly engaged in collecting, photographing, recording, writing, editing, reporting, or publishing news, for gain or livelihood, who obtained the information sought while working as a salaried employee of, or independent contractor for, a newspaper, news journal, news agency, press association, wire service, radio or television station, network, or news magazine.” U.S. District Judge Marco A. Hernandez laid out seven qualifications that make a person qualify as a journalist. Professional journalist Peter Nowak writes in his personal blog that “without editors, blogging can’t be journalism.” Why? “The best reporter in the world sometimes misses things, makes mistakes and allows his or her bias to slip in. An editor – even a lowly copy editor – is there to catch all these things and elevate the story…It’s also why I don’t consider any work that doesn’t have an editor – including everything I write on this blog – to be proper journalism.”

• Examples of bloggers who aren’t citizen journalists: 1. Crystal Cox, who was sued by (and lost to) the investment firm she wrote critically about in her blog. 2.  Matt Drudge, according to Leonard Pitts, Jr. of the Miami Herald. – “I can’t envision Matt Drudge standing his ground in a flooded city to report and inform…Will ‘citizen reporters’ replace that function? Will they have the resources, the credibility, the knowledge, the training or even the desire to do so? No.”

 

My input:

As someone who has her bachelors, and is now working on her Masters, in journalism, i’ve always felt that the mass comm law and ethics learned in such programs is invaluable for the professional, working journalist. Anyone can read a newspaper/magazine/new site or watch a broadcast video and learn how to use the tools and how to emulate the storytelling style but for me, education is what ties it all together. But as I’ve gone along, I’ve come to appreciate citizen journalism even more, especially as an individual who who is prone to live-tweeting and iive-blogging events I’m not getting paid to cover, just for the sheer thrill of it and the obsessive need that drives me to get information out there. I think though that most people are viewing education with too narrow a definition. It may not come in the form of a former education. J-schools and news recruiters will even tell you that your on-the-job experience counts so much more than your GPA, proving that a degree is, for the most part, just a formality. It’s the access to equipment, professional journalists, and resources that make j-school so important to the news industry. However, education can come in others forms: Poynter Institute seminars, Society of Professional Journalists conferences and workshops, unofficial internships, etc. My opinion is that if bloggers want to be considered journalists, citizen or professional, they need to educate themselves, abide by the SPJ’s Code of Ethics and know they will be held responsible for lible and defamation, the same as a “professional journalist.” The law shouldn’t protect them if it can’t punish them for wrongdoing, either.

I need your help to create a new website name

To all my talented, creative, and geeky friends and readers:

I have to create specialized content for a website through my New Media Journalism graduate program. For my assignments, I want to profile geeky and artistic people, organizations, events, etc. in the Tampa Bay. I DESPERATELY need help coming up with a name for this website/blog. It needs to be short and sweet, someone include that it’s geeky and artistic, and obviously needs to be original. Help?

The Inverted Pyramid Song

This one is for all the journalism geeks out there. I found it originally on Stuff Journalists Like and it was created by flowkradd on YouTube.

The story of an RNC runner

When I applied for a runner position at NBC News for the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I just knew that I had to be one of those 15,000-something journalists getting in on a piece of history.

Getting behind the scenes on a political convention can be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for some people. The Republican National Convention and Democratic National Convention only happen once every four years and unless you have an in, like a media pass, you might never make it past the temporary concrete boundaries and fences set up by local police.

A runner, according to Manager of News Partnerships for NBC and my supervisor at the RNC, Kim Grabina-Como, is a “glorified intern.” You get paid, you only work for a short time frame (in my case, eight days), and you are able to work with a national news network. Currently, regular interns at NBC News aren’t paid, Grabina-Como said, but the network is changing that in 2013.

For anybody who wants to get into the industry, it’s a way to see stuff from behind the scenes. “You see the good, the bad and the ugly. It gives you a real, true feel for it in the fact that if this is the industry you want to get into, you can see it for what it is,” Grabina-Como said.

I got assigned to MSNBC’s set at the Channelside District in Tampa for the RNC.

You see on-air talent without their makeup and coming to set frustrated by traffic and the stress of such a large production. Supervisors, production managers, and other runners snap at each other on occasion when they’re overwhelmed and stressed out and you have to let it slide off your back-  it’s not personal. I spent one lunch break in the tiny bathroom in the temporary MSNBC command center at Channelside bawling my eyes out for getting yelled at by a supervisor for not having my cell phone on me, though I’d been upfront with them two days earlier when I broke it. Long days kept me from seeking a replacement- the AT&T store opened after I got on set and closed long before I left. It teaches you to have a thicker skin, which you’re going to need in the industry if you want to make it.

On the flip-side, I got to network with media professionals, pass out some of my new business cards, and goof off at the Goggle+ Hangout at the Tampa

Dani and myself goofing off in the Google+ Hangout photobooth on a break.

Convention Center while I was on break. While there, I took advantage of their photobooth and grabbed some button swag to add to my growing collection.

That week, Tropical Storm Isaac also threatened to rush through with heavy wind and rains. It delayed the start of the convention by one day but ended up being a pretty typical Florida summer rainstorm but you still have to make sure TV screens, speakers, mics and other assortments of equipment are stored and being used where they can’t be damaged. Every gust of wind and hint of rain sent members of the production crew scurrying to cover and relocate equipment. You have to be prepared for weather changes during live shots.

Runners for NBC were required to sign a social media contract agreeing not to post photos, tweets, Facebook statuses or any other form of social communication about the specifics of their jobs. The purpose, Grabina-Como said, wasn’t to dissuade student journalists from using social media as a tool in their work. Unfortunately, while most 20-somethings know how to use social media tools, they don’t always have the discretion to use them professionally and during your time as a runner, you are an employee and representative of the news network you’re hired by.

I got this blog post approved, which I normally wouldn’t do in my day-to-day job as a journalist. However, I knew I wouldn’t be producing any content for the RNC as part of my position and I didn’t expect to even write this blog post.

What you can expect as a runner

Runners are there to assist network news stations in any way they are asked to make sure the production process goes smoothly. Sometimes your responsibilities are as basic as fetching food and coffee for on-air talent, managers and the production crew but every bit of help you offer helps make the production possible.

Sitting in for the Meet the Press on-air talent so that the production crew could test lighting, audio and camera angles.

Since I was a local, I was sent out in the rental car often to purchase and pick up things like studio chairs and supplies. I also dropped off press credentials at various hotels for other NBC employees and sat in for on-air talent before the convention while the photojournalists and production crew tested audio, lighting and camera angles. On my final day as a runner, I assisted with payroll paperwork for freelance production crew employees and helped clean up the temporary command center MSNBC called home for a couple weeks.

In between my assigned tasks, I connected with my fellow runners, students from various fields of study, and journalism professionals like my Twitter friend, Mark Luckie, the Manager of Journalism and News at Twitter.

Omar Jimenez, a broadcast journalism student at Northwestern University, was assigned to work in NBC news studio and to programs like Meet the Press, Nightly News and other specials.

“I had an opportunity to meet and talk to all those anchors,” Jimenez said. “I didn’t get a chance to do much journalism but just being around the people you want to work for one day, taking out trash, getting drinks and food and running errands, being around those people was great and I made a lot of connections.”

As a freelancer for local newspapers and news sites whose degree focused on print and online journalism, I was clueless as to what it takes to put together a live broadcast, especially for a major event like the RNC. It was eye-opening even for broadcast journalism students like Eric Burse, who studies at the University of Southern California:

“Before going there, I wouldn’t have known what exactly it means for a network to broadcast live from a location,” Burse said. “The technical operations, administrative stuff, workspaces, coordination from network to get everything going, especially with NBC and all their platforms. You can only learn so much from class and this was an opportunity that most college students in their four years don’t get.”

Advice and tips

• You’re going to work long hours, sometimes as many as 14+, so wear comfortable shoes. Dressy, flat baby doll shoes or nice sneakers for the ladies and comfortable dress shoes for men. I made the mistake of wearing dressy sandals one day and had to tend to my blisters for a week afterward.
• Bring sunscreen. Many of us had to run errands between the Tampa Convention Center, Tampa Bay Times Forum and Channelside district. With the road closures and wait times for the shuttle, walking is easier but you risk sunburn without protection.
• Lug around as little as possible. You won’t have time to keep an eye on your stuff and even a small purse or bag seems to weigh a ton after a long day of running errands.
• Keep your phone handy, preferably one with a camera so you can document history in the making, so that your supervisors and fellow runners can touch base with you. Always have a notepad and pen at the ready to jot down notes and instructions and don’t forget to bring business cards to hand out to professionals you network with on your downtime.
• Make sure your online portfolio, resume and LinkedIn profile are up-to-date and that all your social media profiles are professional prior to the convention, especially if you’re guiding people there via a business card. As budding journalists, you should be doing that anyway.
• Do research about the network you were hired by. This tip comes from Grabina-Como who related a story about a runner being excited to meet Diane Sawyer. “She doesn’t work for us,” Grabina- Como said. Familiarize yourself with the specials and the on-air talent beforehand.
• Have an open attitude.  Grabina-Como attended the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan as a runner for CBS News. “I went into the Olympics wanting to be a sports reporter and came out realizing there were so many other things I could do.”

While several of the runners, most of whom were college students or recent graduates, were journalism or political science majors, not all aspired to work in politics or cover news one day. Their majors ranged from history to English.

“Even if you’re not interested in television journalism or political science, we had 52 runners that got an experience that few in your generation get,” Grabina-Como said. “It’s once every four years that you get the chance to be a part of something bigger.”

I encourage other journalism students and recent graduates to apply for runner positions with major news networks regardless of your journalism track. Expect to work until your legs and back ache, to go without sleep and drink way too much coffee, to be ordered around and yelled at for things beyond your control, and to be overwhelmed beyond imagination. If you can handle all of that, you’ve got what it takes to work in the industry.

Also, journalists are increasingly expected to know multimedia and convergence is no longer the future, but the present. What better way to experience that than as someone who gets to see it from the front line?

A. Zombi, a “presidential hopeful,” and his wife dropped by the MSNBC set at Channelside with the zombie horde trailing behind them. Just one of the many interesting, weird things you get to see at a political convention.

A letter to Android users about the iPhone 5 announcement

“Hello. My name is Daylina and I’m an Apple addict.”

I admit it. I live for Apple announcements and iOS upgrades. I follow live blogs and tweets about Apple osted during Apple pressers. I own a Macbook Pro, an iPad 2 and an iPhone 4 and yes, I will be upgrading to the iPhone 5. I like the way I can sync my Apple products together and manage my workflow and to be frank, I prefer Final Cut over other video editing programs and it only runs on Mac.

But when I tell you that I love my iPhone and my Apple products, I’m not trying to convert you to my fanaticism or denounce your own choice in phone. I think there are some fantastic Android phones out there. I just personally prefer Apple. So when I read a Facebook post today from Scott Kelby, a brilliant professional photographer, I couldn’t agree more. Kelby directs his “letter” to Android users dissing Apple and the new iPhone, pointing out that the announcement wasn’t meant to convert them or down their personal choice in phone, nor can the argument be made that the announcement was over-hyped, at least not by Apple. It was the rumor mills and tech websites that did all the over-hyping.

I especially dig the Sony/Nikon comparison (Full disclosure- I’m a Canon girl). Here is Kelby’s Facebook post:

This doesn’t affect you.

Today, Sony introduced a new full-frame DSLR, it’s the SLT-A99V. It’s 24-megapixels and costs almost as much as the Nikon D800 I use, which is 36 megapixels. So, do you think I should go to Sony user online forums, and on Facebook and here on G+ and tell people why the Sony I’ve never held in my hand, or even taken a photo with, sucks? Should I go on and on about how much better my Nikon camera is, and why I would never use a Sony and how stupid people are that don’t buy what I use? Of course not, that’s for losers and trolls. 

Well, that’s what exactly I’ve been seeing all day about Apple’s iPhone 5.

Android users lining up to say how disappointed they are in the new iPhone, and how they’re sticking with Android, and how there are so many better choices and on and on. Well good news: Apple’s iPhone 5 announcement doesn’t affect you any more than Sony’s A99V affects me. I’m not switching to Sony, you’re not switching to Apple, and that’s perfectly fine.

Android Users

Why do you feel you have to jump in and attack a product you don’t use, and won’t buy? Android-based phones are a perfectly fine choice — you don’t have to defend your choice whenever someone mentions the iPhone 5 or any iPhone for that matter. It simply doesn’t affect you. You have a phone you already like, so good news — you’re going to save a bunch of money by staying with what you’ve already got. You should be happy — not angry and bitter. This should be a day of great jubilation — your choice of smartphone has been vindicated — Apple is all wrong again, and you’re smarter than everyone else. Rejoice and stop and the hating.

One last thing

I saw this headline today over on Google+ “iPhone5: Did it live up to all its hype?” Gees, did Apple hype this before today’s launch and I missed it? Did they give out the specs last week? Did they post photos of the iPhone on their site? Did they make promises of what would be in the iPhone 5? Did they even mention the phrase “iPhone 5?” No. They didn’t pre-announce a thing. The hype didn’t come from Apple — complain to your local rumor site

Pssst! Make sure you check out Kelby’s website and buy his books on Amazon! I have all four parts of “The Digital Photography Book.”