Mapping it out: Lessons

I didn’t want to write a typical paper.  I didn’t want to just spout off what I learned from each place like I was regurgitating my notes.  I can do that anywhere.  Instead, I wanted to include my voice.  I wanted to remember not just the companies we visited but the sights of the city; the experiences we had.  I wanted this to be more than an extended chain of events.  I wanted this to be visual, so I made it visual.  No, this may not follow typical format, but I didn’t want it to.  Below are eight locations in New York and Washington D.C. along with a corresponding lesson that is then applied to journalism or communication in some way.  This is a combination of two things: humor and truth.  Yes, you can have both.

This trip was a chance for me to grow.  With every location, I was given the chance to ask myself, “do you see yourself here?”  Yes, there were places where I could answer no wholeheartedly, but there were also places where I thought yes.  Yes, yes, yes.  And although I may not end up working at that particular place once I graduate, I learned what I wanted.  I walked away from this knowing there is a way to get there and it’s not completely out of reach.

CHINA TOWN

Welcome to China Town which could very well be called a poor man’s Midtown.  Your eyes are bombarded with the retina-searing colors of knock off handbags and fake pashmina scarves.  If that isn’t enough to cause a mild case of nausea to sweep your body, you catch a whiff of the hot oil from the Chinese restaurant across the street.  The ‘C’ on the front window confirms your fear that something is not quite up to code, literally. Enter the petite Chinese woman who aggressively beckons you into her shop.  Careful with how much interest you show.  Before you know it you’ll find yourself crawling past Prada bags that read ‘Parda’ on the label to get to a small back room that looks like it’s breaking every building code known to man.  The walls and ceiling are lined with various faux leather bags.  There’s something wrong with each of them.  But you’ll buy one anyway.  Everyone ends up buying something.  I’m unsure whether it’s out of actual want and desire or straight-up fear that you may not leave that back room unless you buy a blue and yellow bag.

Ethics and Morals as seen through China Town

One place we visited, The Smoking Gun, mentioned how many news organizations will pay others for story ideas.  I’m a believer that by accepting money from sources, you are in essence accepting bribery.  This seems like an ethical issue.  I wonder if these news organizations check the connection between the story idea and the source; do they have anything to gain from the situation?

I picked the wrong career path if I wanted to make friends and be morally and ethically sound.  Here’s the problem: if I do my job right and tell the truth, people will hate me.  They will call me a sensationalist if I do investigative work because I will shed light on an issue that may reflect negatively on others.  But I must remember it is my job not to cover up and protect others, but to hold them accountable.  With that said, I believe you need to have passion for this line of work for it to be rewarding at all.  Really, the only time people will know your name is if you screw up.  And you will.  The Smoking Gun said it best by pointing out you can either be in it or be a follower.  Most people settle for the easier path.  But I choose to challenge myself to be in it whole-heartedly.

FINANCIAL DISTRICT

I like to think that the second largest commodity in this area other than money is Pepto-Bismol. Not because of a plethora of food vendors in the surrounding streets or restaurants with Zagat ratings so high the number resembles an ACT score, but because of the stress involved with handling the world’s money.  Standing in the center of it all means you’re hedged in by grey stone buildings.  You can either slick back your hair and suit up or remain a tourist easily discernable in the crowd by your lack of patent leather loafers and black pantsuit.  There isn’t anything wrong with being a tourist; my theory is that businessmen moving along Wall Street secretly desire to be one of us.  After all, we’re at least spending our own money, however meager it may be. Unfortunately you only have two beacons of hope when the stock market crashes next time: a bull statue to cast your tearful gaze and frustrations upon and a subway station to get the hell out of dodge.   And get out you will, because there isn’t anything quite as unnerving as watching a grown man weep openly.

Finances and job security as seen through the Financial District

Sree Sreenivasan of the Columbia school of Journalism gave me hope when he said that we are still a traditional newspaper society.  Up until then I feel like there were an unlimited number of professionals in the field willing to tell me the newspaper is dead.  After all, several newspapers have moved to an online-only platform – I point you to the Newseum exhibit that showcases the stack of papers that have closed down in recent years to either move online or abandon their efforts all together.  It really comes down to this: newspapers have been closing down since they first began.  Failure is part of the game.

When it comes to actually obtaining the dwindling number of journalism jobs out there, Sreenivasan says “no matter how the world changes, the ability to synthesis, process and digest will make you employable.”  In other words the basic premise of journalism will always remain the same regardless of what new technology waits around the corner.  The editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, Mike Hoyt also had something to say about what an aspiring journalist could do: make noise.  In order to be successful in this industry you need to get your work out there.  Don’t be afraid to self-promote your work.  The more people read it, the more people will know your name.  Journalism is not a career path where you can sit quietly and hope success will find you.  You need to find it yourself.

GREENWICH VILLAGE

New York doesn’t have a hipster refugee camp but if you squint and cock your head to one side while standing on one foot, Greenwich Village may, kind of, with the right lighting look like that place.  Get off the subway and you’re bombarded with boutiques, oh, and a cemetery.  Close to NYU, this small area of Manhattan doesn’t resemble Spokane in the slightest.  I was both thrilled and deeply wounded that not every geographic area surrounding a college could be so eclectic.  Wal-Mart is not eclectic. In the end no one seemed to appreciate my green Keds.  Appreciation for Portland style apparently got confiscated by TSA.

Getting started as seen through Greenwich Village

Possibly the most common advice given to us on this trip was the power and weight an internship brings to your resume.  It seemed like everywhere we went they told us the one thing we could do to put us above the hundreds of other people applying for the same position is prove ourselves through our experience.  At Ketchum PR they brought up something that is important to remember though: even in internships, you have to start from the bottom.  As one of the best PR firms in the world, Ketchum recommends previous internship experience before applying for their fellowship.  Just say it already: you need previous internship experience to even get an internship.  There isn’t anything wrong with this; it just isn’t anything I’ve considered.

Given this thought I completely underestimate how lucky I was to get my internship with Willamette Week when I did.  I had no prior work experience, I had taken one journalism class and I was entering my sophomore year.  In all honesty I don’t think I would hire me.  As the industry continues to struggle it becomes increasingly important to have that prior experience.  News organizations don’t have the staff or the funding to hold your hand as you try and figure things out.  They expect you to come in with some kind of knowledge.

MIDTOWN

Don’t go into the Tiffany store.  This is my advice to you.  If Greenwich Village is the twenty-something daughter of a West Coast family, Midtown is the step-mother that may have poisoned her first husband to get access to his millions. And succeeded.  Walking into Tiffany was like walking closer to the sun.  The glimmer coming off the rocks in the cases wasn’t so much a glimmer as a light on a landing strip.  Tiffany had elevators; Elevators leading to other levels of hell the store.  For the record, if I had a ring that cost that much, I would have to sell organs.  I would be a one-lung, one-kidney, bride that was woozy from her plasma donation.

Priceless skill sets as seen through Midtown

Journalism is shifting.  No longer are you just required to write a decent story, but you also need to be able to bring more to the company.  Because of downsizing in staff size the skills set you bring to the table is important.  The general consensus is that you should be a jack of all trades.  Learn how to edit video and audio.  Learn how to shoot and record both correctly.  Coding knowledge is more important than ever.

At the same time your basic premise as a journalist is still to write well.  When talking with the AP, they pointed out that “if you cannot write a good sentence you cannot tell a good story.”  Journalists still struggle with the basic concept of how to write a decent lede.  I feel like I underestimate my education.  Sure, there are areas of the communication department that could use a bit more attention, but we not only learn the basics, we have them drilled into us.  I know how to write a headline.  I know how to write a lede.  I may not know how to do a radio broadcast but I know how to use the inverted pyramid and use it well.  I would rather have the basics nailed down than have sporadic knowledge of a lot of areas.  If it’s really that important I’ll learn it through the Whitworthian or WhitworthFM.  It just takes initiative on my part.  Initiative shouldn’t be the issue; everything about journalism takes initiative.  You cannot be afraid to ask questions; to question authority; to dig until you find an answer.  You may not find the answer you wanted, but an answer you will likely find nonetheless.

UNION SQUARE

I think the world needs more places like Union Square.  In a city like New York where life travels at such a fast pace, you don’t even have the opportunity to look at the person walking next to you.  I learned early on that people don’t smile when they walk down the street.  Granted, if you smile there’s a good chance you’re going to breathe through your mouth and who knows what makes up the air in this place. Business is the top priority.  Like an emotional reservoir in a steel and concrete desert you see more from people than business and fast feet.  But, alas, we’re in New York.  Don’t mingle too long or a cute man with a nice smile will approach you and try to convince you to commit to a $200 haircut for $60. With every reservoir there’s always a snake in the grass.

Community and relationships as seen through Union Square

Whitworth is known for its ability to build community.  But Whitworth doesn’t set the standard for the rest of the world.  There is no Hello Walk in New York.  Lied Square does not exist in the nation’s capital.  But community does still exist.  Like many other industries and career paths, journalism comes down to who you know.  At Wiley and Sons, when they talked with us about their internship program, they mentioned that if we slipped in that we had visited the company before, it would help our chances of getting that internship.

At Saatchi & Saatchi, they mentioned that it’s all about the connections and relationships you make with others; you don’t know when they will come in handy. What they said was this: don’t burn the bridges that you make because you never know when you will need that contact.  Along with this you also need to realize you will not get along with every person you work with, but you must be able to interact with them on a professional level.  Everyone is not going to be your friend.  Even those who you seem to rub the wrong way may in turn become a contact for you later on down the road.

CAPITOL HILL

It’s what everyone sees as a mental image when they think of Washington.  The Hill.  Not the Hills, which is a trashy TV show, but the Hill.  It just screams importance.  And when you stand in the center of the Mall and face the Capitol with your back to the Washington Monument, you witness that importance.  Lawmakers walk those steps daily and dictate the future of our country.  I sure hope they at least do so sober, or else the nice Vietnamese couple visiting the States is going to get the drunk senator in the background of their family photo. Smile.

First impressions as seen through Capitol Hill

When finding a job it really comes down to that first impression.  Unfortunately it isn’t even a face-to-face first impression.  Instead it comes down to paper.  After talking with the head of HR at Ketchum PR, we learned that we really only have a few seconds to make an impression that either dictates whether we get a call for an interview or thrown in the recycling bin.  It’s daunting to think that the rest of your life can be dictated by a one page summary of your experiences.

But with that said, turning in a resume to HR divisions of companies you want to work for is like playing Russian roulette.  Ketchum said they preferred to have education first and experience second while the Associated Press said they want the resumes turned into them with experience first and education last.  While at the book publishing fair, the four panelists gave contradicting answers when asked whether a thank you note really helps their chance of getting a job.  Half said it showed initiative and it may help them in the long run, while some said they would likely throw away a potential candidate’s resume if they didn’t receive a thank you letter shortly after the interview.  I’ve decided that when I get a job it will likely be an act of God.  The planets will need to align with so many companies placing emphasis on what’s important and what isn’t.

ARLINGTON

I looked through the window as the metro surfaced.  Row upon row of headstones lined the green hills.  It’s a somber sight.  As the image of white and green slipped out of view, I wondered if those who take the blue line every day get that same feeling.  I wondered if after awhile it becomes commonplace.  Do they lose the ability to feel sadness over that much loss?  Does it take the form of a sad tourist trap rather than a memorial?  Do they just not look out the window?  The Capitol sits on the other side of the Potomac.  But here, the Capitol might as well not exist at all.

Set-backs and the death of an industry as seen through Arlington

When we visited WNET they were in the process of moving to another building.  But when we sat down with them, they informed us that the government is looking to cut the public spectrum in order to better accommodate the need for internet bandwidth.  With the use of internet skyrocketing, public television isn’t the only area feeling the strain.  So the question is, how do you begin to swallow the internet pill when it means revamping the way you send out information?  The internet isn’t new, but it is growing, which is where the problem begins.

WNET also pointed out that the issue facing newspapers is how will they begin to make money on it? At the same time organizations that originally started charging for content are now trying to figure out a way to make it free.  This is because of the large amount of free content online that rivals the information you would pay to get elsewhere.  It seems the new battle is over the importance of applications.  PBS as well as Wiley and Sons were in the process of creating apps or already had them up and running.  But is it worth the time and effort to fund that project?  The resounding voice was yes so long as the applications linked to paid content elsewhere.

PENTAGON

Here’s the disclaimer: I didn’t visit the Pentagon.  The view of the building was brought to me courtesy of the window seat I got leaving Washington.  I like to think it was my parting gift from D.C. for being so cold to me during our visit.  It was ominous; kind of like a castle but instead of knights wielding swords the place is filled with people with fake names.  There must be some form of security involved with having five sides, because its form definitely doesn’t meet function and I find that irritating.  In the center of it all stands a grove of trees.  Trees surrounded by walls of concrete.  Those are the safest trees ever.  Part of me would give anything to be one of those trees.  If the world ends in 2012, I would feel significantly safer in the center of that building.  And all I kept thinking was “I wonder how close I could get to that inner sanctum before I got tackled?”

Security and intelligence as seen through the Pentagon

The media, like everything else are businesses.  When visiting FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), program director Janine Jackson said that because news outlets are businesses it can often conflict with the goals of journalism.  The key is to be aware of who owns what.  Do your research.  Jackson said you can see elements of corporate ownership and sponsorship in many areas of the paper.  As a journalist it’s important to know who owns the news organization you work for.  For example, I doubt the local paper will run a front page article about the family who owns it if they unearth a major news story about them.  And therein lays the problem with media today.  Because of the state of the industry, newspapers are worried about loss of funding more than ever.

What I learned in theories of human communication and what was reiterated to me in a round-about way at FAIR was the idea that the media influences the policy which then affects the public.  What worries me is that if such a chain like this exists, then by allowing major funders of news outlets to play such a large role in what they publish, ultimately the will of a select few will affect the rest of the world, rather than news outlets listening to what their community wants.  In this field, you need to have the ability to do research on your own in order to succeed.  You need to develop the ability and desire to dig until you can’t dig anymore.

 

Why Uncle Sam and his extended family leave D.C. on the weekends

1. Temperature + wind = “is my face still attached to my body?”

D.C. is cold.  That’s an understatement, but I’d rather not cuss on a class blog.  People who work in Washington during the winter months get to experience the frigid temperatures every time they head to work.  Five of the 7 days of the week are spent trying not to lose a limb due to frostbite.  Why on earth would you put your life on the line again for two days of night life?  In their defense I was done with walking outside after five days too.

2. ‘Closed for business’

Oddly enough very few places hold weekend hours in D.C.;  a sad realization when a good majority of us were wandering around looking for food Saturday morning.  I would leave too if sticking around meant starving.

3. They’re smarter than we all make them out to be?

As explained by the woman sitting next to us in Minneapolis: “people leave because they don’t want to be in that city.  They’re the smart ones. You’re the ones that are dumb for sticking around on the weekends.”

Touche, lady without a name.  Touche.

So, should I be worried that the nation’s capital is pretty much abandoned on the weekends?  Probably.  But rest assured there will be at least one place open when the world goes to hell: Krispy Kreme.

And to the left is an uninterested journalist with a shiny smile.

Everyone has something to sell.

I’ve walked into meetings where people were excited to see us.  And at the same time I’ve walked into meetings where people couldn’t care less that we were there handing them a Frisbee. (“Oh, so you’re the Pirates?”) But there is a common denominator among them all.  They all have mastered the art of selling their product and brand.

Wiley & Sons “pitched” us their ideas on why academic publishing was a prosperous business making strides toward increasing digital content.  The New York Times graphics department “pitched” us their reasoning as to why they were the best graphics department (and also why we could never work for them).

It was a game I played for awhile to keep myself entertained: try and find the comment that bolsters the company ego or the individual ego.  I noticed that PR firms and Ad agencies in general had the easiest time making their job sound like it was worth giving my left arm for.  Oddly enough, some larger companies that didn’t seem thrilled to entertain us for an hour still managed to spin questions around to make their company look good even when the question clearly warranted a negative response (a real response, not some made up crap).

Here’s the problem: I don’t want to sell anything.  I believe that journalism, if done well, will sell itself.  I don’t want to be the person that will stretch the truth in order to make my company or my final product look better.  Perfection is unattainable and we learn best during the times when we completely and utterly screw up.  So when I sit down with these big shot company heads who tiptoe around a question because it may not be what they want to talk about, I have an issue with that.  I have an uncanny desire to tell it like it is a good majority of the time.  When it comes down to it, I suppose the best thing I’ve learned from this trip is that regardless of the prestige of the company or the power the name can carry on a resume, if they aren’t willing to bring it all to the table, I have no desire to work for them.  I want the good, the bad and the ugly because it gives me confidence that if I screw up (and I will) it won’t be the first time it’s happened.

Do you hear that?  That’s the sound of 80 percent of the potential employers viewing this page closing their browser window.  Hello, temp agency.

Back in my day newspaper was on paper

As a journalism major I’m forced to consider the stability of the field I wish to enter more times than I would like. Mainly what professionals look at is the future of print media and whether it is here to stay or not.

I came to New York expecting to be told the newspaper was heading out the door. I came to New York expecting to be told I needed to know how to code before I even had a chance of getting a job. I came to New York expecting to be told journalism was a dying field. And although I have heard this on a few occasions, I’ve also seen something else entirely.

What I’ve seen repeatedly as our group heads all over Manhattan for meetings is a large number of people reading the paper. No e-book readers, no mobile webpages accessed on an iPhone, but a hard copy of a newspaper. Thank God for public transportation. With no cell reception you’re left with few options to fill the time. Either pick up a copy of a daily or expect to spend a long ride staring at the sign in the subway car telling you not to train surf.

Coming from the west coast, this is a new concept for me. We spend a good majority of our time as journalists trying to move our content to the web. People drive everywhere (something that just isn’t practical in a city this size) and it seems we spend more time talking on a phone than we do to the people around us. We don’t pick up a paper because we’re surrounded by gadgets that are less cumbersome and more convenient. We complain about constantly being on the go and not having time to read the paper while the city that never sleeps is managing just fine.

As the industry acts like it needs a Xanax to deal with the new wave of digital trends, Sree Sreenivasan, a professor at the graduate journalism program at Columbia University says we are still a traditional newspaper society. He pointed out an interesting and often forgotten fact: newspapers have been closing down forever. They evolve with the times or fail; it’s as simple as that. Yes, online news is a growing industry, but there is a time and a place for it. There’s still value to print.

Often I think we lose sight of the fact that we can have a strong online presence while still maintaining a print edition. It seems news organizations on the west coast have one or the other, usually sacrificing the quality of print for the upkeep of an app or website. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.

Man, those west coast people just don’t know a good thing when they see it.

But for now I’ll publish this from my iPhone like the Portlander I am and bathe in my hypocrisy.