Trip Reflection

Media Impact Reflection Paper

In preparation for this trip, I didn’t know what to expect. This past semester I tried to adopt a “take the day as it comes” attitude…which led me to not actually be ready prepared for the trip at all. I packed too much, saved too little and showed up slightly disoriented from a day of travel. Since that beginning day, however, I have learned about the different jobs available to the media, how social media plays a part in today’s news, how to survive in a city of 8 million people, and, most importantly, how to go about getting a job after college.

In the long list of sites that we visited, the ones that I was least interest in were the book publishers. I didn’t see the point in me being at a meeting where I had nothing to learn. I quickly discovered that I was mistaken. John Wiley & Sons was the first stop of the trip. Wiley is a book publishing company that started in 1807. It has published great works from authors like Irving, Poe and Melville. Since it’s development in the 19th century, the company has grown to be a leading global publisher for scholarly and professional works. For much of its existence, this company was run within the John Wiley family. The first speaker essentially read us the entire history of the company off of the power point and so doing the background research was a little redundant.

I was more interested in the later speakers who talked about some of the different job aspects at Wiley. For people interested in working for the firm, there are many opportunities ranging from someone interested in editing to information and technology. I also was interested in the concept of sales and working with global rights issues. I realized that even I could find a future in a book publishing.

This realization was emphasized more at the book publishing fair. The “fair” turned out to be a panel of human resources people from three different publishing companies with an audience of over-zealous editor wannabes. The information that the HR people gave, however, was intriguing. They shared the best ways to get a job at publishing houses and also shared some great online links for getting jobs in book editing and publishing. I’m glad we went to both of those sites because it helped me understand that I don’t have to work at a journalism or public relations specific business in order to utilize my education.

A personal note from our first day of travel: KEEP HYDRATED!! I did not do this and it did not turn out well. I was tired all day long and it made the first day miserable. Plus, I was wearing way too many layers of clothing and would be burning up the second I walked into a building if I couldn’t immediately take my coat off. I think I did better throughout the rest of the trip, so it was a good thing I learned that lesson early.

The next day we visited The Smoking Gun and Ketchum Public Relations. The Smoking Gun is an online news website that posts legal documents and breaks stories about them. They also take current stories and look for the story in it that isn’t told. For example, if there is a confidential “informant,” they will look deeper than that upfront information to find out who this person is. It uses information that is all open to the public to break its stories, which makes it free from libel and privacy suits. In fact, in the 14 years it’s been running, it’s only been sued once and even that court case was thrown out. Another thing that impressed me about them is that only 4 peopled worked in their office. This allows for a really close working environment where everyone gets to share in the work. It helped me to start thinking about whether or not I’d prefer to work at a smaller privatized business as compared to a large corporation.

After lunch we went to Ketchum Public Relations. Since I am interested in public relations, I was very excited to go to this meeting. We spoke with four different women involved in the company about their different jobs, how to get involved in Ketchum, the work that Ketchum does, and how to get an internship at Ketchum. It was very informative, but also a little intimidating to hear them describe the clients they work for and the application process.

After this meeting, I had thought that this would fall into a “dream job” category. It is a great company and in the long run I think I would enjoy working at such an agency. However, the rest of the trip started to make me evaluate the kind of work environment I want to be a part of. I think it is important to have an idea of the environment you’d like to start your career in, and also of where you’d like to spend the majority of your career. I think that I could spend a large portion of my career in a business similar to Ketchum, but that I would prefer to start at a smaller venue to really learn the trade and gain more experience.

We received our weekends off in order to go exploring and experience some of the city. I think this was a highlight of my trip. Not necessarily that I was able to sight see—which was cool—but that I was given the freedom to make my own plans and decide how I wanted to spend my time without any other obligations. If there is space needed at the end of this paper, I will recount my adventures. For now, however, I will focus on the academic side of things.

On Monday, January 10, we visited Bloomberg News in the morning and the New York Times graphics department in the afternoon. The building of Bloomberg is really cool…there just isn’t another way to describe it. It’s high tech, aesthetically pleasing, and very intense. They have food there so that people don’t have to leave, and little spiral-y cushy area that you can sleep on. They also apparently have one of the only three curved escalators in the United States.

Bloomberg has links and connections to an abundance of news events that are happening in the world. They have huge terminals all around with lots of writers that are just cranking out one story after another. Also, they get updates from the stocks and business transactions feeding in to the Bloomberg terminal. It’s really amazing to watch all of the information being processed. It seems to be a very vibrant and energetic environment, but also one that expects high levels of accuracy and achievement. Much of the group seemed intimidated or unsure of what they thought about the company.

Although also a little intimidated, I was intrigued because I can see myself learning quickly and thriving in such an environment. This is in complete contradiction to what I had originally thought when looking online at the company. So, the lesson learned here is to make sure to get the full picture of a company before deciding on if it is a good fit for you.

When we visited the New York Times graphics department, it was during the first few days after the Arizona shooting. This meant that the paper was doing extra coverage of the story and our original schedule got changed. We were fortunate to meet with the managing editor of the graphics department, though.

He talked to us about what the department does in terms of online or print graphics. It was entertaining to see the different maps the department had produced. He also talked about the staff of the department and explained that many of them have specialized degrees in areas such as cartography or analytics. This was surprising to me because I envisioned that the people working there would be specifically graphic design and journalism majors.

Our meeting was shorter than planned but I decided that was all right with me. At each of the business we visited I had started to ask myself, “Do I want to work here?” and the answer in this case was not particularly. It’s a great news organization and one of the most widely recognized in the world, but I think I’d rather stick to reading the paper instead of writing in it.

Tuesday was a fun-filled day with good meetings and a great evening of events. First we went to ProPublica and met with Mike Webb, the Director of Communications there. It was cool to meet with someone who does PR work for a smaller organization as compared to an industry giant like the New York Times. ProPublica publishes stories that focus on a moral force. Reporters there do investigative journalism that exposes exploitation of the weak. The purpose for ProPublica is to serve the public interest, but to also keep the spirit of investigative journalism alive in a time where journalistic resources are lacking. It is an independent news source that partners with other news organization to publish stories.

I appreciated what Webb told us about the investigative journalism world. I think what that type of journalist does is so interesting and compelling. It makes me almost want to become one myself, but then I realize that I often don’t care enough to ask the hard question or to push for the real answers. I like to respect other people’s boundaries and so I don’t think I could be a reporter for someplace like ProPublica.

The second and third meetings of the day were held at the Columbia School of Journalism. First we met with Sree Sreenivasan, the Dean of Student Affairs at Columbia. He talked with us about the history of the school, the type of student the program looks for and about technology and digital media. He claims to be a technology evangelist and skeptic and so he strives to help journalists become smarter users of technology.

Sreenivasan talked with us about how to become well versed in new technology. He was one of many people who explained how important it is for us as journalism students to know how to work with digital media. I was interested when it seemed like he was cautioning our use of it as well in saying that we haven’t even begun to fathom what a site like Facebook can do. He also stressed the importance of finding our passion and just running with it because often that is what gets students noticed and ultimately what gets them hired.

Right after our meeting with Sreenivasan we met with Mike Hoyt, the editor of the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR). The CJR is a magazine of ideas about the challenges facing journalism. I thought it was a magazine that the Columbia graduate students created, but soon realized that I was mistaken in my previous research. I didn’t learn that much more in this meeting than I did in our previous one. I also think that I was fading after sitting in one place for so long. The take away I gained from this meeting, however, was that one of the biggest problems in today’s mainstream media is that people get bogged down in “he said, she said” reporting and end up looping to conclusions instead of finding the sources and evidence on their own.

The best part of this day was going out that night. We went to Virgil’s BBQ, on Time Square, and had some delicious brisket. I love barbeque so I was pretty much in heaven. Then we went to go see Wicked on Broadway. That just made my trip. I was blown away by some of the songs and absolutely loved the experience.

The next day we visited Saatchi & Saatchi advertising. In my original research and questions I had asked, “Can I work here?” After meeting with them and taking a tour of the company, that still rings true. I loved the energy and the atmosphere and was entertained throughout the whole meeting. This may be due to Erin Lyons, the woman from the Human Interest department who was giving us the presentation. It was easy to see that she loved her job and being able to work for a place like Saatchi & Saatchi. My favorite part was seeing the reels from the pitches they have given to different clients. It gave me insight into the quality of work the agency produces.

Another aspect that I enjoyed from Saatchi & Saatchi was the way they tried to build relationships between the employees. One of the words we heard a lot on this trip was transparency. Saatchi & Saatchi was no different. They want to have a positive working environment, where people know what other people are working on and so they design their offices to be very open. Even top management has glass walls for their offices so that they can be seen by the others on their floor.

The last two days that we were in New York City, we visited the Associated Press, TV Guide, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, and WNET-TV. Of these four businesses, I was most interested TV Guide, although I was disappointed in the employees we talked to. I thought their job seemed really cool, but they seemed to be worn out and disillusioned by their jobs. WNET-TV also peaked my interest because I can see myself going into broadcast television at some point in my life. Not necessarily in being an anchor, but possibly being a producer or director.

The last week of the trip was spent in Washington D.C. Upon our arrival to our nation’s capital, I quickly identified a distinct difference between the two cities we were visiting. New York was busy and crowded and quite frankly, a little dirty. D.C., on the other hand, was more open, you could see the sky, and it was much easier to breathe. It was also amazing to go from a city of steel and glass to one of marble and granite.

While in Washington D.C. we visited the Newseum, C-SPAN, PBS, Regnery Press, Human Events, the National Association for Broadcasters (NAB), the Project for Excellence in Journalism, the Student Press Law Center, the Reporter’s Committee for Freedom of the Press, and the Library of Congress. After adding to that list four more museums and five monuments, I am surprised that I am even able to separate out the different places we went. In this last week we took things a little slower, which I greatly appreciated. After pressing to fit so much in New York, it was nice to get to relax and to take our time seeing the different historical parts of the city.

I think that my least favorite places that we visited in D.C. were Regnery Press and Human Events Magazine, which I guess was really just one place. Regnery publishes conservative books with titles that remind me of supermarket tabloid headlines. When I walked into the office my eyes widened in shock and a bit of horror because I wasn’t sure just what kind “conservative” they were. Essentially they are republican supporters and democrat haters. Human Events is a magazine that follows this same line of writing.

The meeting itself was entertaining. I liked hearing what their representatives said, but I didn’t agree with them at all. I think it is good to hear what people who have differing opinions than me have to say. I also appreciated hearing a straight answer to some of the political questions the group answered, even though they were from a different political viewpoint. What I didn’t like, however, was some of what the Human Events editor talked about regarding the ambush interviews. I thought that as professional and top notch that he claimed to be, that a lot of what he was saying was just talk and tooting his own horn. Ambush interviews maybe are what people have to do to get a story, but I think that they give journalists a bad name and they remind me of paparazzi photographers jumping out of bushes to take pictures of celebrities.

I don’t think that I would ever want to work for a place that is so clearly conservative, or even so clearly liberal. I understand the argument that it can be good to take a clear stance so that one doesn’t seem wishy-washy in ones attempt to be objective and without any bias. But, there is also a problem when one is so overwhelmingly one-sided that one becomes blind to anything important from the other side. In conclusion, although I didn’t like these businesses, I do think that they were beneficial to visit.

My three favorite places that we went to in D.C. were the Newseum, C-SPAN and the Reporter’s Committee for Freedom of the Press. The committee was cool to visit because I just got done taking mass Media law and so I understood what our presenter was talking about when she referenced rulings by the courts or laws that the committee has fought against. I started to wonder if I could be a media law lawyer…for about two seconds at least. Then I remembered that I don’t want to commit any more of my life to school than necessary. Perhaps I would be able to work at such a place if I could just do research and write stories for their magazine.

I enjoyed C-SPAN because we were able to meet with Brian Lamb who is clearly incredibly intelligent, but also candid and congenial. He took the time to ask our group questions and get to know us. He also thoroughly explained his role in the company and talked about the importance of trying to be an objective interviewer. I expected the meeting to be the most boring of the trip and so I was pleasantly surprised.

The day I went to the Newseum was probably the day that impacted me the most of the entire trip. This happened in part because I visited the Holocaust Museum directly after the Newseum. First of all, the Newseum was great because it allowed us to see how news and the media have progressed throughout the history of America. It also showcased certain recent events in greater detail such as the 9/11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina. I hadn’t planned to spend very much time at the Newsuem at first, but I think I could have easily spent four or five hours there if I hadn’t already planned on going to the Holocaust Museum.

Even so, the time I spent at these two museums reminded me of a question I was asked the past summer: “What are you passionate about?” My answer was uncharacteristically brilliant. “Uh…I don’t …know…?” I said. Granted, I had just met the woman who prompted such a response and so I felt a little weird discussing my life dreams with her. But the realization that I didn’t have an answer was somewhat haunting. I keep finding myself grateful that I have another year until graduation, but I am no closer to deciding what I want to do with my life than I was when I entered Whitworth. In fact, I think I might have even less of an idea now.

So as I stood there, looking at some of the most horrifying images I’ve seen in my life of human suffering, I was hit with this feeling that I’m grasping at loose straws. I wish I could find that passion or drive to cover groundbreaking news around the world, to show the world the stories or pictures that change lives, but I don’t see where I actually fit into that picture. The same emotions that compelled me to tear up when looking at photograph of an emaciated child in Somalia or to be infuriated at the lack of aid that was given to Jewish refugees during the Holocaust, only extend as far as me wanting someone else to fix the problem. I see the journalists who have made history with their dedication to their jobs, to be the “watchdogs” for society, and I’m jealous of their passion. I just doubt my own skills to be that good, and my own passions to even take me that far.

That is what I found myself experiencing for much of this trip. The examples of everyone else’s experiences in the realm of media are heartening (yes there are jobs out there, we aren’t all doomed), but I still wonder what the hell am I doing, and how do I get from point A (where I am now) to point M (actually having a job related to media)?

All in all I am very grateful to have come on this trip. It has given me an abundance of tips on how to find a job after graduation. I don’t have any impactful reflections or witticisms for others reading this paper, most of what I have learned are inner realizations and thoughts that are helpful to me but probably common sense to most others. I don’t think I am any closer to figuring out what I want to do with my life, but I am a little more hopeful that I can get a job. I know that I need to brush up on my social media skills because every single meeting we went to stressed the importance of knowing how to manage networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. I also know that I need to really focus on getting internships in the next year. I hope to do one this summer and one or two doing the school year, as time and money allow. I think that I am on the right track and just have to push myself to apply to different jobs and to try and network with people.

Between the two cities, I think that I liked the pace of Washington D.C. better, but the people we saw and the things we did in New York better. There seemed to be more to do or see in our free time in New York and I think I got to experience the city life more. In D.C., it was more of a sightseeing or vacation feel, as compared to getting a feel for what living in the city would be like. Plus, it was harder to find the places we wanted to eat at in D.C. for some reason. And seeing how eating was one of the main highlights of this trip, that is pretty darn important. My five favorite places we ate at on this whole trip are: Junior’s (cheesecake place in NYC), Virgil’s BBQ (bbq off Time Square), Crumbs (cupcake bakery in both cities…oh the calories), Luigi’s Italian Restaurant (off DuPont Circle in D.C., one of our great discoveries), and Lincoln’s Waffle House (across from Ford Theater and was just what we were looking for).

If I were to change anything about the trip or its schedule, I would suggest that more down time is built in to the time spent in New York City. That may mean just taking an extra day or half day at the beginning of the trip to let people catch up to the time.  I don’t think I really felt rested until the Wednesday that we didn’t have a meeting scheduled in the morning. That was a huge blessing because we needed time to breathe. I would also maybe plan in an evening meal or two that everyone goes to and is paid for as part of the trip budget. It’s great to get to choose your own place to eat, but it is also fun to find a time where the whole group can hang out and relax. Especially if in the future there are more men on the trip, it helps being people together and it gets people out of their rooms if food is being offered.

To anyone interested in taking this trip in the future, I would highly encourage you to do so. If nothing else it helps you figure out if working in a big city and in a big firm is right for you. Many people at our school get stuck in their comfort zone and don’t push themselves to take an adventure. I’m very glad that I didn’t do this. Besides the meetings and information we gathered, I made connections with some amazing people from school that I had never talked to before. Thanks to Jim for organizing everything and to all who made the trip enjoyable!

The weary traveler

Sometimes traveling brings out the best in us all.

DC Brief in Photographs

I’ve been too busy going out and about in NYC and DC to sit down and edit pictures. I’ve finally gotten to work on it, and I’m posting a brief smattering of images from our time in DC. More will come later.

Finding the Middle

If a cow had chanced to run by me on the street this fine evening, I would have gone Han Solo on that beast and draped myself in its steaming innards.

Too graphic, you say? Too shocking? Shockingly cold, mayhaps. Cold, and windy.

This is a sad turn of events, as the last two days have actually been rather nice (the sun shines on the day my girlfriend visits. Coincidence? I think not). I suppose it’s because we’re in D.C., where the winds of politics can shift at any moment, and a bright sunny day of aisle-crossing progress can suddenly become a soul crushing filibuster of overcast skies and icy gales.

I realize that I’ve talked about the weather in most of my blog posts. I refuse to apologize for this, though I realize I should probably move on.

We visited the Student Press Law Center today, which was probably the most directly beneficial visit of the trip so far. It’s an organization dedicated to providing free legal advice to student journalists. What this means is that they defend a lot of student newspapers from their fascist administrations.

Whitworth is a private institution, so many of the First Amendment rights don’t directly apply to us. We’ve been blessed with an administration that has chosen to behave as if they did, however, a fact for which I can’t be grateful enough. However, it’s still a bit disconcerting to know that the free hand we enjoy with our press could be taken away without our being able to offer much resistance.

Perhaps the most interesting tidbit of the visit was hearing how the courts are handling cases involving social media. Basically, the courts have no idea how to handle social media. Unsurprising, since most judges are of the “the internets are Al Gore’s devil creation” time of life. At this point the basic approach is to shoehorn social media cases into precedents of physical media cases. This works…mostly…it’ll be interesting to watch how it all shakes down over the next few years. But until then, organizations have a little leeway in how they handle stories related to social media, since the law hasn’t really caught up with it yet.

Upon Looking Back… A Reflection Synthesis

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I feel I should start this reflection/analysis/synthesis out with a tell-all preface.  I do not do reflection writing.  I know, I know, I am a literature major, which involves a whole lot of writing.  While this is true, the type of writing I produce as a literature major is boring, at least in comparison to journalistic, colored, personal, and creative writing found in blogs and, I am sure, in my others classmates’ reflections.   My writing is usually third person, polished, researched, edited, critical literary analysis writing.  The type of writing I am used to does not include feelings, emotions, personal thoughts, or, (gasp!) first person.  In my youth and beyond, I have tried on multiple occasions to keep a personal journal, but would always angrily tear it apart after reading my own writing.  I was embarrassed of my writing, my thoughts, and what I thought was worth writing, the “news-worthy” details of my life never seemed important a day later.  However, one of the most important things I learned on this trip was how to challenge myself.  I learned this while writing blog entries and comments for the first time, meeting and making new friends in what turned out to be a sometimes stressful living situation, and daring to raise my hand with a question to ask impressive and accomplished professionals.  While traveling on this adventure, I learned that I wish to stretch, push, extend, and thrive to become a more successful person, professionally and personally.  To stretch, push, and extend myself, I must try new things.  This reflection paper is in itself, my attempt to try something new.  This fact alone should demonstrate a large portion of what I have learned, and how I have grown while on this trip.  This reflection paper should also demonstrate how I use the knowledge I gained as I take the skills, confidence, and ideals learned and push myself to open my Microsoft Word and type, something personal, something colorful, and hopefully something that I can call important in days, weeks, and even months to come.
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Throughout this media impact tour I have become more aware of the many options available in potential future careers.  My interests in such careers shifted, morphed, changed and grew through our important meetings and by exploring potential lifestyles and careers.  Although this discovery of my options is an exciting revelation, it is also incredibly overwhelming and quite frightening.  Sitting in on most of these discussions with such successful people I found myself scared of all the options I have and the decisions I have to make so soon.  I also felt humbled by the fact that they would want to meet with us.  I am, after all, just a lowly college student from Washington.  Washington State.  Almost all of the professionals we visited encouraged finding internships and really striving to dive into the field that most grabs our attention.  Yet how do we find this field?  In the short amount of time I have left before graduating and entering the “real world” it seems I must narrow down, if not pick, my career choice so that I can apply for, and hopefully receive, an internship.  I must do and decide this all before I even attempt to apply for a spot in the profession I must choose to seek.  An internship will then make me a stronger applicant when I choose to apply for a career.  But which career?  For what position?  In which location?  How do I “get my foot in the door” if I have dozens of doors to choose from and only two feet?  Throughout this journey, I uncovered the questions I need to ask and answer of myself before moving forward in my search for a career.
I am not and have never been a procrastinator.  That is my best friend.  And I am glad she can do that.  My friend would rather wake up during the wee hours of the morning to finish, or start, her paper due at nine that morning.  She thrives and produces her best work under tight, constricting deadlines.  I very much admire this about her, while I am quite opposite in this regard.  I, on the other hand, would rather have my assignments done and reviewed at least a day in advance.  I thrive by living with organization and daily plans to complete my work early.  I enjoy extra time to look over my work.  I would classify myself as an organized person, almost a perfectionist, however, I do not believe any of my work is ever perfect.  Yet, the first thing I ever learned to like about myself was my strong work ethic and my organization.  Conversely, I cannot shake the feeling that I am procrastinating some of the, arguably, most important decisions and actions in my life.  That is, what to do when I graduate?  What do I want to do with the rest of my life? Which career should I choose?  Do I have any chance of breaking my way into that profession?  Should I have back-ups?  And what should those be?  How do I choose?  Where do I start?

This journey made me aware of these questions and the pressing need to answer them before proceeding on into that scary, real, competitive professional world.  I believe raising questions is an important part of finding answers, for how can you find the answers if you don’t know where to look for them?  I am thankful for the opportunity to be a part of this trip and the undergo the process of uncovering these questions as I think they will have a great impact on the next stage of my life as I will soon transfer from student to working employee.
As I stated, the first portion of this trip raised all of these questions inside myself.  They rebounded off my brain and I felt the pressure of them everywhere.  Yet, somewhere along the trip these pesky questions seemed to dissipate.  What replaced these seemingly unanswerable questions were confidence, calmness, and ease.  I learned this ease through observing the professionals, through bonding with fellow travelers and through embracing the questions I have of myself while actively seeking answers.  I believe that all the things I learned on this trip are valuable skills, feelings, contacts and life lessons.  I am proud to have been a part of this trip and to have gained so much from this experience.
I will start this adventure of lessons and learning by describing the basic nuggets of knowledge I picked up from the cities themselves and how these views impacted my life and my future life decisions.  During our time in New York City I did learn that I do not want to live in NYC.  I am just not cut out for the New York big-city lifestyle.  I do not thrive on crowds, high prices, always-noisy atmospheres or crowded, sometimes smelly subway cars.  I do not enjoy feeling of hopeless misdirection, nor the cold stun of the freezing wind whistling between the cool, steel towers that are the buildings of the city, blocking out the sun and most of the, sometimes blue sky.  I found I enjoy mountains rather than the skyscraper jungle of NYC and waiting for the “walk” signal before crossing the street.  I would prefer to live in a city were the fear of being run down by a crazy, honking taxi driver is absurd, not a relatively common occurrence.  Not to mention the silence I enjoy at home, in NYC broken by honk after honk of frustrated drivers blaring his/her horn for no apparent rhyme or reason.  I enjoyed being a tourist in NYC, but I believe I would have a hard time living for an extended time in the Big Apple.
Our second stop, Washington DC, I found to be quite different.  I do like the New York subway system better, or I was simply more used to the lines, trains, turns, and switches of that system, as opposed to the DC metro.  However, on the whole, I could see myself living in DC while this image was not possible to imagine in NYC.  While DC does have the big city feel, the surrounding area is much calmer.  The off-the-beaten-track areas of DC are places I would not mind living it.  One random detail about DC that made my day a little brighter and my thoughts on the city a little cheerier happened at a chain fast food restaurant.  This fast food place was clean and the employees helpful and nice, but more than this was the softly playing Christian music in the background.  While I am sure this same scene could be heard in many other places in many other cities, the fact that this organization was a chain and was still choosing to rock Christian music impressed and stuck with me.  I like the area for more than one restaurant’s music selection and this fact could potential help me in deciding what job I wish to take and may be helpful in my pursuit of an internship to spice up my resume.
In contrast to the earlier, almost negative sounding, newly developed opinions I hold about New York City, I discovered some parts of NYC that I truly appreciated and enjoyed.  I liked how there was always a new restaurant to try, and new street to see and new cultures to observe on the subway.   I also liked that there always seemed to be people to make an impression on, to greet or to help.  I surprised me how appreciative waiters, doormen, security guards, etc were to receive a simple, “thank you” for the simplest of actions.  Yet, their responses cemented in my mind that perhaps city dwellers do not thank a waitress for refilling an empty water glass or thank an aging security guard for holding open the door.  While I was in New York City I was happy to do these things, to give money to awful, disruptive singers on the subway and thank and smile at everyone I could, but I believe I empirically learned this is not a common action.   I believe that I could survive and function in a place like New York City.  I think I could navigate the subway stations effectively, find good, A-Rated places to get, and use common sense to maintain a decent lifestyle in the never-sleeping city.  Yet, I am not sure this is an environment I wish to spend a large portion of my life in.  I am scared the city would dampen my view of the world and kill the “thank you” before it slipped out of my mouth, while frightening away the appreciation I have for cultures and cities, new and remembered.  These big-city lessons and independence I learned may influence my decision to look for a profession that could function without the big-city lifestyle in New York City.
Thus ends my, hopefully colorful, lessons learned from the city.  To sum it up, I liked both, would visit both again, I learned from both, I could live and enjoy myself in one, while I would not like living in the other.  I feel more mature because of our visit, because of the experience gained, and the independence found.  I hope it is clear how much and how completely I enjoyed this trip.  It was educational, eye opening, and fun.  I found the cities exciting and invigorating.  I enjoyed trying new food, seeing a show on Broadway, pushing onto compacted subway cars like native New Yorkers and all the rest of the adventures we took part in.  It is my opinion that I l grew as a person, a friend and a student on this trip.  I truly believed I learned something valuable from each of these experiences and locations.
Valuable experiences were also gained in our “classroom”, or our meetings.  From the beginning of the trip the importance of internships were clearly expressed.  Professionals from our first stop, John Wiley & Sons, and almost every stop since that first meeting with those very first muffins in New Jersey discussed the importance internships carry.  Internships hold importance because they represent experience, selection and qualification.  It was voiced over and over again at different locations, where various people in the same conference-style setting stated and showed how internships must be found and completed before expecting to be looked seriously at or apply for a major position within a company.  In some cases, internships must be competed before applying for higher and more prestigious internships.  In all honesty, I had never thoughts much about internships before this trip.  In complete honesty, before this trip I never really thought about marketing myself, my resume, or even the fact that there might be a struggle to find a job.  I never imagined the competition, the economic ramifications or the lack of jobs available.  I guess I thought a job would just magically fall onto my lap upon earning my degree.  My perception changed seriously as I learned more about the reality of the professional world on this trip.  This is one huge aspect in which this trip gave me eye opening insight and ideas for tools for access in the future, professional world.  The importance of internships now weights down on me like a heavy fur coat pulls a trapped individual deeper into the dark of the freezing pool of murky water.  The murky water here is the future, the coat the lack of an internship and solid resume, the trapped individual represents myself.  Internships are now my glass ceiling keeping me from fresh air and the outside world.  I cannot get to where I could be hired without an internship.  However, there is another blocking point that I must address before I push through the fur coat and the glass ceiling and get an internship.  I must decide what I want to do first.  Knowing what I want to do will give me an idea of what internship I should look for, which will then give me experience and a fuller and stronger resume.  I learned I needed these important trade tools because of this trip and the advice we received during our meetings.  Because of this lesson I now know what I need to accomplish before entering the professional realm.
While I feel the weight of internships and my empty resume, the people I meet and their attitudes about their work truly touched and inspired me.  The people that we meet with seemed happy with the careers they chose, expect for one instance at an entertainment news organization, in which I perceived the want of more substance in writing from three of the people we met with.  This common reality of enjoying work, I learned, is inspiring to me as we visited so many various places doing so many different things, while all had the common denominator of happy, passionate employees.  It was also good for me to learn that the individuals we meet with have so many different backgrounds.  Various majors, activities, clubs, jobs, etc, landed these individuals were they are today.  This encouraged me and by discovering this I learned to hope for the future.  Many of the people I met tried other jobs first and worked their way to where they are now.  I feel like I could do this and be successful.  I believe this was a main goal of the trip.  To learn what you are capable of, to learn how others have accomplished what they have, and to see where to potentially fit in to the professional world.  I believe I learned this and it deeply influenced my worldview and my perceptions about occupations and the future.  All of these values I found in the meetings we were a part of in both in New York City and in Washington DC, through the individuals we meet, and through the passion those inspiring individuals illustrated.
In a different way, I believe that the unenthused professionals at the entertainment news group taught me a very important life lesson.  This lesson was observed, not by the words that were said or through the tour they directed us on, neither was this idea found in the research and background information on the organization I completed before the trip.  I learned from the individuals’ lack of passion that you must care what you do, as this is a necessary part of being successful.  You must think that your work matters, holds significance and makes a difference.  Like the professionals at the book publishing fair stated again and again, passion must be evident in actions, statements, resumes, and work.  I decided these employees must lack passion for the work they do.  While there are nice individuals and were kind enough to take time out of their busy day to meet us, the lack of enthusiasm displayed on their faces, in their words, actions, and in their work spoke louder than their words.  Because of this, I strive to seek a career that matters to me.  I wish to be positive about what I do.  More often than not, I want to wake up happy to be allowed the opportunity to go into work.  I want to lead and inspire by example while making a difference.  I appreciate this lesson learned as well as the people and professionals I feel embrace this lesson and lead me by example.
At these meetings in which I picked up on the positive attitude of the speakers and the significance of internships, I also learned how no one that is anyone would look at you twice if you don’t have experience and knowledge on how to market yourself.  I learned that resumes are a reflection on you and show what you can do.  How to “get your foot into the door” is then not to send a single shoe to the company you want to hire you, but is to have an intelligent, error-free, complete resume detailing internship, skills, and experience.  More than this, your resume and cover letter must illustrate your passion for working and for working for that particular organization.  Why you want the job must be included as well as the foundational question, “why you?”  What makes you so much more special than anyone else? More qualified?  Harder working?  While some of the information gained at the long meetings was, in fact, common-knowledge, other bits were helpful.  I learned your resume must market you, because no one else is going to do it for you.  You must also believe in yourself, your skills and qualifications in order to market yourself and get a job.  I certainly felt that the individuals without the nametags and security badges, with steady salaries and fancy offices sitting at the front of the table marketed themselves very well.  I also felt these professionals believed in themselves.  This ties back into the life lesson of enjoying and believing in what you do, passionately.  This experience of meeting these professionals who truly practicing what they preached may have helped me truly understand what it means to be a successful business professional in today’s world.  I will use and apply this lesson by picking a career that means something to me.  While I acknowledge that I will not start out in my dream job, I will do my best to act passionate about whatever job I manage to find that I believe in.
I believe because of and during this trip I learned how to act confidently.  I saw professionals in job settings I could someday see myself fulfilling, all who acted and spoke with confidence.  I saw Kara confidently leading our little group through crowded streets, sometimes knowing exactly where to go.  I saw students, normally so shy, asking question and speaking to the president of PBS and other impressive individuals.  To me, this trip was more than a checklist of places to go to take pictures of while having a few meetings along the way.  This trip built friendships, it strengthen bonds in relationships already developed and developing, it brought ideas and people together to produce common idea and to further individual ideals.  In me, this trip created confidence in myself.  I may not have a sparkling resume and an impressive big city, big company internships, or a detailed plan and researched history of the organization I wish to someday join.  Not yet anyway.  But I do have the ideas, the mind power, and the help to reach these things and to achieve my goals, confidently, because of experiences I had while on this journey.
My, lets call them… creative ideas can be seen as I walked away with lasting life lessons after visiting the Smithsonian in DC. While admiring the many things there are to admire at various Smithsonian museums during our trip, I realized that the kid-friendly text surrounding and describing the exhibits are, in reality, life lessons more than descriptions of museum displays.  These miniature life lessons can, will, and have taught me quite a lot about life, survival, and simply being myself.  The ability of mine to think cognitively during my “break”/free time makes me smile at the level of maturity I have reached.  Even when that maturity leads me to making cheesy statements about life from small phrases describing museum displays.
The first life lesson I learned was in the Museum of Natural History.  The “survival hint” simple stated, “Don’t Get Eaten”.  While this certainly applies to life in the deep sea, as the sign intended, it can also apply to my life, as I begin to try and separate myself from the pack and find a career.  I do not wish to get swallowed up by the competition; I do not want to fade away into the background, or into the acidic stomach of a much bigger, and probably more mean-looking fish.  I want to stand out and survive.  Of course, I must remember that skills; agility, brains, brawns and just a wee bit of luck are all needed to survive in the deep sea and in the professional world.  I must also remember the skills I learned through this trip and apply them to my goal of standing out and surviving.
Another sign/life tip read, “What’s for Dinner? Anything!”  This works in my life as, again I hunt for jobs, opportunities, experience, etc.  What will I accept?  Almost anything at this point, as long as it matches my morals and I can feel passionate about the work I am doing.  The hope is someday I will work my way up the food chain/corporate ladder and move on to better things.  This is a reminder to be patient, to accept what you get without being to picky and to constantly work up to something greater.  This sign is a signal for me to be more accepting.  Yes, I did get all that from a sign by a tank of old fish bones.
Another sign at the museum read, “The Work is Never Finished” Well said, Smithsonian, well said.  The work to educate myself I don’t believe will ever be complete, nor should it, because one cannot know everything.  This is not an excuse to quit, but a ploy egging you on to continue.  I will never stop learning and (hopefully) never stop trying or caring.  The work of a museum curator, of a person seeking employment, and of an educated individual is trying, never ending, and never finished.
At the Julia Child model kitchen, displayed proudly in a corner of the Smithsonian, this colorful quote can be found, “You can never have enough of these tools”.  While, of course the legendary chief is referencing frying pans, spatulas, mixers, and the like, I read this quote as an invitation to welcome more knowledge and skills.  We have heard a lot about resumes this trip and you can never have enough skills, experience (INTERNSHIPS!!!) or knowledge.  (As long as your resume is only one page… front and back, right??) These career and life tools are helpful and I believe the opportunity to use them and to expand them is always present.  You simply can’t have enough skills or, referring back to the earlier quote, you simply don’t have enough time to explore and expand all these skills, but you should try nonetheless.  While you are trying you should remember this last quote found again in Julia Child’s kitchen, “Above all, Have a Good Time!” This note cheerily inspires me to remember to have a good time.  If I am making a disastrous mess in the kitchen, getting rejected by graduate schools, hunting for non-existent jobs, limping around on a suddenly sore knee or icing the “good” leg because it is sore from supporting the bad one, I must remember that this is my life, my experiences, my hurt, and accomplishes and I can choose to make the best of it.  I can have a good time!  In expanding this quote to embrace the ideologies I learned on this trip, I can have a good time while doing what I want, passionately.  As I have learned that passion is a key ingredient to success in the professional business, in getting hired, while on a trip with others, and, like Julia Child, in the kitchen.
I did have a good time on this trip.  I think, more importantly, I learned how to have a good time.  I learned confidence, I learned life skills, important future job tips, and how to act and fake it until I do make it, while having confidence that I will make it.   I have also learned how to be okay with myself.  I don’t have every detail of my life planned out picture perfectly.  I don’t know how I am going to get from Point A, where I am now, to Point B, where I want to be in X amount of years.  In fact, I hardly know what Point B is and I feel I have a dozen different, and sometimes-conflicting paths leading me there.  However, the confidence and “real world” experience I gained during this trip has made me more accepting of the fact that I don’t have every answer and every portion of my life planned out.  Upon hearing many of the professionals round-a-bout ways of making it to his/her dream job, I found more faith in the fact that I do not know where I am going, but with the skills I have and developed on this journey, I can fake it until I make it and can find my way to where I want to be.  This confidence has also made me aware of the areas I need to work on to get to point B and has given me the courage and energy I need to start addressing these issues.
While I did learn many practical things on this trip like what will earn me a job, what will make my resume more likely to get noticed, and what internships are the cream of the crop, I also learned many and insightful things about myself, what I can and can not handle and what I want in my future.  For example, I am not a New York City type of girl; I can’t handle all the nonsensical taxicab honking.   Also, I am learned that while I am unsure of what I want my future career to be, but because of this trip I know what I want it to look like.  While I do not need the fancy marble buildings that we saw at a large portion of the places we visited, I do need to feel that my job matters.  Like most of the professionals we visited I wish to be passionate about my job and be surrounded by others that feel the way I do and act passionately about the work we will accomplish together.
On a different note related to lessons learned about myself, I learned that I am more of a follower than a leader.  This comes to me as quite a shock after my high school days of being a section leader in band and teaching myself through directed studies.  I now find myself more comfortable following others around the city.  While this may simple be because my aged phone does not have GPS or a fancy interactive topical and subway map however, I think the root of my new follow-the-leader issue runs deeper than my technology.  During our meeting at the PEW foundation in Washington DC we were asked to introduce ourselves and give the location of where we live.  However, my fellow students started listing the commonly stated majors, minors and activities instead.  While I knew this was not the exact answer that was asked, I followed the herd and gave my routine answer.  This small example, to me, speaks volumes, as I follow more than I have the courage to lead.  Again, in scheduling sightseeing activities, I feel simply along for the ride, as I brought no thought-out or preconceived notions of what I wanted to see in either city we visited.  While this did not make the trip any less enjoyable, this feeling of follow-the-leader and my new lack of the ability to lead concerns me.  Because of my experiences on this trip, I have identified this follower status as a quality I wish to address in my life.  This drive to better myself, in addition with the sense of purpose and drive to get more involved was uncovered on this trip.   I believe addressing and working on these personal issues will help me as a person, a student, a leader, and a prospective employee.
This trip impacted my academic life and future simply by inspiring me to work harder and not forget my end goals.  In addition, upon hearing all the things some of the professionals juggled while earning an undergraduate degree, I feel urged to do more myself.  I wish to stand apart from others, on paper and in person.  Because of this trip I wish to get more involved with a wide variety of activities, academic and otherwise.  I believe that I can and will do this.  Because of this trip I will apply for as many internships as I can receive and juggle.  Because of the lessons I learned on this trip I will remember to think positively and look for a career, not just a job or a manner of means and money.  Because of the values I saw on this trip I choose to seek a career that I am passionate about, that matches my values and moral, a profession that means something to me.  I now know, because of this trip that I want a profession that I enjoy so much I want to invite, receive, and talk to college kids from a school across the country I know next to nothing about.  I want a job that makes me want to inspire others and inspires myself.  Because of the sights I saw, the people I met, and the experiences I had on this journey I will strive to be a better individual and work passionately to become a well-represented, experienced, passionate, and charismatic potential employee.

A Bite out of the Big Apple

Introduction

I feel that before I invite you to embark upon this journey with me I should explain in more detail what such a journey will entail in order that you may fully understand what you are getting yourself into.

After spending a month in the heart of the city you truly learn more than you bargained for. And although I planned to be grasping for content, I instead find myself struggling to narrow down and categorize what I’ve learned into some kind of manageable format. Not to mention the more of these places I go and the more people I talk to, the less I feel like I know what I want to do with the rest of my forever. Thus I’ve worked hard as you’ll see, to approach these lessons broadly, in a way that will make them applicable to whatever field I decide to pursue.

So presented in the following pages, you’ll find my feeble attempt to consolidate a month of knowledge; professional insight, my own ingenuity, and even wisdom from some of New York’s finest. I hope you enjoy recounting said knowledge as much as I, throughout the compilation process, enjoyed reminiscing the means by which I acquired it. Thus I am proud to present to you, in no particular order, a few small bites out of the Big Apple.

 

Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better

You have to have something that makes you better than them. And they have to know about it. Something has to make them want to come to you for what you do. Whatever your profession, to some degree you end up selling yourself.

You can’t just stand on a street corner and scream at people, although you could, and people do “Comedy show, indoors, starting in 10 minutes” but do you hear that… even that guy on the street has a competitive advantage. “Indoors.” It’s 10 degrees outside, snow is falling, I’m packed onto the slushy sidewalk with 200 other people who don’t know where they’re going, a gust of wind has just blown my hood clear off my head, my eyebrows are frozen and I hear the word “indoor.” Well frick yeah, that has to be better than what I’m doing.

I mean… I don’t really need to buy anything at Toys R Us (I don’t really need see a comedy show either but that’s beside the point) … and I’ve already seen M & M world in Vegas, so sure Mr. ugly guy with the funny hat and stupid comedy show sign, I’ll come see your thing, why not.

Regardless of what you do, you have to do it better than anyone else in some regard, from some angle you have to be better. You have to believe it, you have to sell it like you believe it, and soon enough, they’ll believe it to. And then… and only then, will you be successful. You’d better find a street corner and start yelling.

 

Watch Your Step

Who’s toes are you stepping on to get where you want to go? Something I discovered throughout this trip is that the value of journalistic integrity (or integrity as could be applied to any profession) is relatively subjective, and truthfully, varies greatly between institutions.

A balance needs to be found when answering the question “what kind of (insert choice profession here) are you going to be?” If you want to be well respected, it’s important to not hide behind the safety curtain that your “title” may offer, but it’s also important to not bite the hand that feeds you. If you’re stepping on toes (and arms and legs and faces) to get to the top, when you get there, you aren’t going to have much of a support system behind you.

 

Shhhh… it Happens

It’s inevitable. Bad stuff happens. It sucks but it’s life, and sadly enough there’s people whose job it is to deal with it. Every time. Even more so, it’s their job to expect it to happen, and to be ready when it does.

Prepare for the worst. Know what to expect and when it happens, have a plan. Know how to communicate what you need to communicate. Know where you need to go and what you need to do and do it calmly.

And remember to be glad that when everything does go wrong, you’ve got someone around who’s skilled in handling your problems. They’ve thought about and prepared for far worse. And while you’re at it, be glad you don’t have their job.

 

Passing the Bar

This job market, in case you weren’t aware, is horrendous. College graduates look at themselves in the mirror on graduation day, diploma in one hand, tassel in the other, clad in their wrinkled cheap Jostens robe and think to themselves ‘Cool, I just spent more money than I have on an education, and then spent even more for this crappy robe, to walk down an aisle that leads to nowhere, no job, no money, and maybe after some twists and turns, mom and dad’s house.’  Every college grad’s dream right?

But it’s important to remember that even though the market is awful and it’d be exciting to get offered any job at all, it isn’t going to matter that you have a job in a month if you hate it so much that you wish you were unemployed. Have standards. Don’t settle. Something great will come. Patience is a virtue and Bloomberg is an ant farm.

 

Talking the Talk

It takes little effort to express in words ones desire to accomplish a given thing. It takes constant effort however to accomplish that which one desires to accomplish. Anyone can claim to be anything but if their actions do not defend said claim, no one will label them as that which they are not, but rather they will be labeled according to their actions, and what they appear to be.

In the world of journalism and “news” and “media” I have realized that it is one thing to claim to be ethical, or even to try to be ethical. It is another thing entirely to actually act ethically, to in fact strive daily, outwardly, and to accomplish ethical tasks by ethical means.

Very few self-proclaimed “ethical” news entities are in fact “ethical.” (And more broadly even still, very few self-proclamations hold remote degrees of validity regardless of what the proclamation may be) And those who think they are, or even more so, claim they are, may well be worse off than those who know they aren’t and never claim to be. Distorted self-perceptions may be one of our societies greatest pitfalls.

 

 

 

It’s All Greek to Me

“Regardless of what profession you seek, you need to know some degree of HTML,” they said to me.

Now it would behoove you to understand one thing about me. The only thing I know about HTML is how to spell it. So it follows logically that in this given conversation my jaw would drop, my shoulders would slouch, and my brain would think, “well there go my chances of ever getting out of Visalia.” So what do you presume happened at this point in the conversation? Well… exactly that.

Soon I’ll be picking up the phone, ringing John Wiley and Sons’ number, and in 7 to 10 business days, a 300 page “HTML for Dummies” will appear on my doorstep. Let the job search begin.

And I imagine chapter one will begin much like this. “Now that we all know how to spell our subject matter, let us move forward…” This is bound to be a long 300 pages.

 

And The Dish Ran Away with the Spoon

I learned in New York that it’s ok to steal. But you can’t steal what you would think. If an educated business professional writes a 700-word article and puts in online, it’s totally ok for you to highlight the text, copy it, paste it and post it. And if you forget to copy their name and give them credit, they’ll shrug it off, say “it happens” and move on.

However, if you approach the homeless man on the subway and steal his piccolo in hopes of salvaging what little hearing you have left, he might cut you, he might chase you, he might fight you, and he’ll definitely scream profanities at you.

The costs associated with piccolo theft are much graver than those that accompany the pilfering of intellectual property. Noted.

 

Keep Your Friends Close and Your Enemies Closer

Our society has deemed “skeptical” as such a Debbie-downer sort of word but I gained new perspective on the term during my stay in New York.

“I’m an early tester and a late adopter,” one of our professionals said of his Facebook habits. He proceeded to explain that it’s ok to be skeptical, to test things with an objective perspective. You don’t have to pick one side or the other right away most of the time; and often we think we do.

Be skeptical. Get the facts. Make an educated decision. Don’t be a follower. Don’t do it just because, whatever “it” is, you’ll get much farther in life being skeptical than you will being gullible.

 

Cleanliness is Next to Godliness

So. I may not shower daily, I may not always shampoo and condition, I may not wash my face thoroughly every time. But I do brush my teeth twice daily, I do (most often) brush my hair and I only wear the same clothes two days in a row if they’re really cute and totally worth it.

I can’t say the same for approximately 48% of the New York subway system population. This idea of cleanliness is much more important to me than I anticipated. Life lesson: I like to be clean, I want to be clean and I like clean people.

Washing my hands has never felt so good. I would probably be O.K. if I never rode the subway again for the rest of my life.

 

A Bird in the Hand is Better than a Foot in the Door

If I were to summarize this lesson any more bluntly it would simply state, “don’t be a tool.” Essentially, professional businesses are professional. They want the people they hire to be professional. They want to be treated and respected as professionals. Thus, sending a shoe to a company with a note that says “I just want to get my foot in the door” attached to your resume isn’t going to work.

You may ask “even if I’m qualified?”  The answer is no. It won’t work, even if you’re Bill Gates. It’s tacky, it’s lame, and well… it’s unprofessional.

So. Don’t be stupid, and keep your dirty shoes to yourself.

 

Sex Sells

I love it when things come together and the world for once seems to make something obvious and easy. There were two times on this trip that this happened. The following is my account of the of those times:

It seemed that every place we went we talked about (in a vague sort of “I don’t want to hurt the media’s feelings” way) how corrupt our society is. It’s pathetic really when you think about what sells today.

It’s not intellect, it’s tweets that get hits. Editors are switching college vocabulary with Google keywords because it’s what society reads. The entertainment industry is a testament to this.

What’s logical isn’t competitive. Our society isn’t lacking intellectual individuals, it’s lacking intellectual consumers, and in turn it’s wasting the hard work of its educational institutions.

 

Internships > Professional Degrees

The other lesson beat over my head was a simple equation “internship = important.”  This is great for me considering the fact that I’ve had three. However for a lot of people it can be rather disheartening. Here you’ve just spent a quarter of a million dollars on an education, you’ve struggled to choose a degree that fits your “personality” and “what you want to do” and now they’re telling you that your college degree is nothing more than “a placeholder”.

Essentially you’re diploma isn’t going to get you anything but a pat on the back, a hole in your wallet and maybe, if you’re lucky, an internship. Then that internship will get you a job. Cool.

But it’s all a journey, they’re all stepping-stones, and looking at college as a waste of time would be the wrong thing to do. Unfortunately for us (although, fortunately for society) the majority of our population has college degrees, so it’s just not as respected as it once was. We have to take it one step further. That step is experience: internships.

 

Have a Cold One, on the House

Lately we’ve talked a lot about elections and about what wins votes, we talked about policy and entertainment. And throughout the conversation one thought kept coming back to my mind. The guys this morning talked about an election rating system they had based on which candidate you’d rather have a beer with. Since when was THAT what made a good president of the United States of America?! Do you really (and more importantly should you really) want a president that would share any of the traits you look for in a wingman?

Every person we talk to seems to say “the people want “x”…” I get it, we’re a government by the people, for the people, of the people. Yeah yeah yeah. but to some point, how much do the people really know about what they need. Isn’t that, after all, why we elect people to make decisions for us?

So where then do you draw the line? How much do you cater to the uninformed, uneducated public? How much do you use keywords instead of intellectual content? How far do we let it go before all we are is a society of twitter feeds, dumbed down campaign messages, and funny talk shows. NO! The fact that Sarah Palin entered the realm of reality television isn’t good. It may be good for her campaign, it may be what the people want, but it’s not good for the people, it’s not good that it’s what the people want.

I hate that it becomes about winning instead of about the right. (not the left vs. right right but the wrong vs. right right.) Someone needs to stand up for what they believe in. Someone needs to expect more out of our society. Someone needs to call them to a higher standard and remind them what’s important. Someone needs to tell them what they need.

Obama was right. We do need change. But what he brought and what our society thinks is change, is conformity, it’s a crowd, it’s a follower. How can you lead the people if you’re operating by their stipulations? Is it even possible?  It seems our government leaders are so afraid of biting the hand that feeds them (losing votes) that they won’t stand up for the principles they used to believe in (the principles for which they were elected). That is the downfall of our government, it’s not republican, it’s not democrat, right, left, liberal, conservative, House, Senate, President…. it’s the lack of leadership (creativity, innovation, courage, CHANGE) from the top, any “top”, all “tops.”

 

Papyrus: An Endangered Species?

A lot of people have been asking questions about new media. Where is the media as a whole headed? What about the newspaper industry, is it going solely to online? It’s become apparent in our conversations that really, no one knows. They can pretend to know, they can speculate, and they may be right, but no one really knows what’s going to happen.

Especially with the spectrum battle between broadcast and broadband, the industry could go anywhere. Right now most agencies are spreading themselves over both sides, just trying to break even.

You have to ‘fake it til’ you make it,’ whether it’s high up in a corporate powerhouse, or fresh out of college attending your first job interview.  You have to do the best you can with what you’ve got. You have to make educated guesses and take action in one direction or another without really knowing how it’s going to turn out. And then when something does happen, you may have to turn around quickly and go the other way.

It may not be your insight that makes you an industry leader but rather your ability to follow quickly.

 

 

 

It’s Business Time

When I told people I was a Business major my freshman year of college, I got a lot of strange looks, even some chuckles. “So, you don’t know what you want to do?” or “Figured you’d get the easiest degree they’ve got?” were among some of the snide remarks. But what they didn’t understand was that I wasn’t looking for a way out, I wasn’t looking for a catchall. I was looking for a basic understanding of what drives everything.

If you work at a newspaper, you are producing a product for profit. You’re a paid employee, a part of a hierarchy. You have a boss who has a boss who has a boss. You are a part of a business.

Someone has to understand that business, someone has to run it, and while it may behoove the company to have that person understand the newspaper industry and the role of media, it behooves them even more to have that person understand business, enterprise, cost benefit analysis and economics.

Business is the cornerstone of every organization. Everything is about business, at some point what you do is about money and if you understand that you can understand your role in that company, you can understand the actions of your employer and you can better both yourself and your organization.

 

Why Mommy?

Young children always ask “why,” oftentimes to the point of parental frustration. As we grow older we assume that we understand the way things work, and if we don’t understand, we assume that we should. We stop asking “why?”

This is a terrible thing. The “why” question is not only the question that should be at the forefront of every good reporters mind but it should also be at the heart of everything we do.

Whether it’s applying for a job, conducting an interview, or choosing where to go for dinner, there’s a reason and a motive. Find it. The easiest way to do this is to as “why.” And one step beyond that, we must always be prepared to answer “why?”

It’s a question we should never stop asking, both of others and ourselves. Why does my company exist? Why do you want this job? Why should we hire you? Why should I move all my content to online. People are going to ask, and you best be ready with an answer.

 

Cat Lady

Our society is disgustingly afraid of being alone. I’m not talking about the “finding your soul mate” alone, I’m talking about day-to-day, moment-to-moment alone.

Do you ever notice that we can’t ride in a car for 15 minutes without turning the radio on, answering a phone call, sending a text message or talking to the person next to us?

What’s wrong with silence? When did solitude become a curse? What happened to being able to entertain ourselves? It’s disgusting in truth that Facebook will soon appear in your car. Because God forbid that you may have to go on a 3-hour car ride and not be able to update your status.

We see this everywhere, the movie “The Proposal” shows Sandra Bullock, a book publisher, on a weekend getaway. Her phone is taken by an eagle and what happens? She calls and has a new one over-nighted to Sitka, Alaska. That’s absurd. And even more, in 24 hours she had received 37 voicemails.

It truthfully scares me to think what could become of our society? Where is it going to stop? How long until Facebook and iPod are recognized by Microsoft’s dictionary as “real words?” How long until Webster deems “tweet” and “facebook” verbs? Will there ever be silence or solitude again? Or will the muffled noise of our neighbor’s iPod remain the soundtrack of our lives for eternity?

 

Money Can’t Buy Happiness

No matter what job we have, what car we drive, where we live or how much we make, it’s never going to be enough.

This course led me to the doorstep of some of New York’s finest and much to my surprise I still heard them say things like “there I was circling things in ads that I couldn’t afford,” or “we waste our time looking at things we wish we had.” I was somewhat discouraged to think about how much these people had and how unsatisfied they still were.

At first I lost a little hope, but then something came back to me, the idea that more important than how much you make, or what your job title is, is that you love what you do.

I finally understood. It’s not because you’ll be the best at that and consequently climb the corporate ladder faster, it’s because even if you climb the ladder doing something you love, you’ll still find reasons to be unsatisfied (be it financially or otherwise). Loving what you do is compensation for the fact that you’re never going to make “enough” to not want to make more.

I remember when I was little my dad once told me “there’s always going to be someone better than you.” I don’t remember what he was talking about anymore, it could have been soccer, piano, geometry, or a multitude of other things, but it really doesn’t matter. It sort of applies to all facets of life. If you’re only going to be happy being the best or making the most, you’re never going to be happy.

Find something to put your happiness in that you can control, measure it by means you can attain, not because you want to sell yourself short but because you actually desire to be happy.

 

Journalism is like Snowboarding

There are a multitude of things in life (reporting being one of them) that by their nature are not difficult tasks. The difficulty lies in the mastery of the art.

Take swimming for example. A 4-year-old can swim but could a toddler hold his own in a race for the Olympic gold? The answer is, “of course not.” They don’t have the stamina. They haven’t been taught. They haven’t practiced enough.

Much like in life, in order to be really good at what you do, you have to practice. Yes, you can be naturally good at something. Good. Remember in 2^nd grade when your teachers didn’t want to hurt your feelings with A’s and B’s and F’s so they gave you grades like “satisfactory”, “excellent”, “poor” and “good”? Well… if you don’t recall, “good” wasn’t “good,” it was at best, “mediocre” and mediocre isn’t good enough. It wasn’t in 2^nd grade and it isn’t now, nor will it ever be.

 

No One Gets Lucky Without Being Ready

After our meeting at an advertising agency, I emailed the account executive we talked to and set up a one-on-one the following day. Everyone was really jealous of my “professional meeting” because my subject was rather good looking. I shrugged off his good looks and went straight to the valuable conversation I came for. We talked a lot about agency life, about learning to ask the right questions, about the value of experience and a relatively lengthy list of other things.

We talked for a while and he had some really insightful things to say. I really appreciated the perspective he brought to the table. One thing he said stuck out in my mind was this, “no one gets lucky without being ready.” What he meant was rather simple but quite valid: essentially if you meet the right person at the right time (say the CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi in a bar downtown) and he thinks you’re great, he’ll go to HR and say “I want this kid, she’s something else” and when HR looks at your rap sheet and finds nothing more than “oh cool, they go to college,” you’re gone. It doesn’t matter if you met the President of the United States, you aren’t going to catch a lucky break if you don’t have your ducks in a row.

Are you ready for your lucky break?

 

You Can’t Not Communicate

Last but certainly not least, after a month of media saturation and corporate conversation I’ve learned one thing that I think is far more valuable than the rest. Communication is everywhere. We cannot escape it. Whether it’s in the form of a press release, an advertisement, a news article, a Facebook post, a tweet, a sign on a street corner or a song on the radio, we are surrounded by communication.

On the flip side, whatever you do, you communicate. Positive or negative, you are sending a message, whether by your presence by your posture or by your proclamations.

We must be careful of what we “say,” and in order to do that we must first be aware of the fact that we are always “saying” something.

In this culture, more than ever, it’s important to be able to send a message: an accurate, consistent, concise message. That ability alone will put you leaps and bounds above the competition.

 

Conclusion

I hope you have enjoyed the tidbits of information I managed to gather from my world travels.  I hope you found it applicable to your life, and I hope you continue to find it useful as you proceed whichever direction you feel called.

Remember that there are lessons to be learned everywhere, from everyone. Keep your eyes and ears open as to not miss what this world has to offer. And bear in mind that it may not be perfect place and it’s certainly full of imperfect people but it has perfect opportunities and outstanding potential. Go find it.

 

Why can’t it all just stop?

I’m scared of the future.

I always have been.  I’ve spent more time wishing I could stay little forever than I’ve spent being excited about growing up.  I realize there are plenty of things to be excited about when it comes to growing up, like driving.  Or shopping for pretty things with your own money.  You can travel and be independent and control your own future.  But there are so many burdens and uncertainties that come with growing up that for me (sometimes) they outweigh the good.

I’m graduating in May, but I’m only 19 years old.  I know this is a great accomplishment and I should be so proud and blah blah blah.  I’m scared to death.  In the last 24 hours, my whole plan for the next year of my life has been pulled out from under me, and I’m having a panic attack about my future.  All I keep thinking is “Why is this happening to me?”

On the other hand, I’m starting to think that this is God’s way of telling me to stop playing it safe.  If I’ve learned one things on this trip, it’s that if you want a job, you really have to fight for it.  This is a cut-throat world, even if we don’t always like to admit it.  If I want a career in audio production or country music radio, I need to dive in and go for it.  Even if I don’t really have any idea what I’m doing.

I know this is mostly indecipherable babbling, but isn’t that the point of blogging?

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.

Reliability and Other Challenges in the Media… (think Core 350!)

Washington D.C. has been a welcome new perspective.  The streets are wider, the buildings are more human scale, it is clean, a bit warmer, and you can see the sky.  Where New York gave me the sense that I was holding my breath, here, I can finally exhale.  This sense plays into our media experience as well.  The Big Apple was city-centric; the cutthroat business and games of the media industry often failed to see beyond its Manhattan walls.  In our first D.C. visit with C-SPAN’s president and CEO, Brian Lamb commented that while both the news in New York and D.C. are money driven businesses, the fundamental different lies in the way that money is accumulated.  In New York, the faster you can get in and working, the more you can make for yourself.  D.C. companies on the other hand, get funding elsewhere (like the government) and move it around.  Despite this difference, it’s always about the money.  The media industry plays the game and thrives off of the drama that they create.  Lamb noted that because of this unfortunate fact, what sells on television is often not what is truly important and significant for Americans.

So how are we, viewers and learners, to rely on what we see in the news?  Human Events Editor Jason Mattera warned also that journalists and television speakers do not always know what they are talking about.  From a personal experience, Jason noted that young and fresh into the business, he made a television appearance, was dubbed a “republican strategist” and was further coached in order to have a good televised debate.  While being aware of these factors is invaluable, it does make the average reader and news consumer’s job a lot more difficult to search out the facts.  It is now almost a requisite that we consult multiple news outlets and practice constant vigilance in our daily consumption.

In the online world of information overload, there also exists the problem of needing to capture peoples ever diminishing attention spans.  Regnery Press’s editorial director Harry Crocker described the tension between seeing the “dumbing down” of the news versus refining the skill of creating dense and clear writing that covers the main topics.  He elaborated on this last part by saying, “brevity is the soul of wit,” and referenced the clever, effective work of Oscar Wilde.  The challenges journalists face down is the necessity to distill their content to communicate quickly and efficiently.  Can you summarize what you need to say in a twitter or facebook post?

Beyond these problems of reliability in the media, our visit to Washington D.C. also brings forth a number of issues between the industry and the government.  My Core 350 sensor was going off the second “public policy” was dropped into the conversation.  Marcellus Alexander at the National Association of Broadcasters raised several of these questions.  Both the NAB and PBS, among other organizations, face the problem of spectrum allocation.  The government is considering switching completely to digital broadcasting, eliminating access to stations via antennae and thereby cutting out an audience primarily of seniors and lower income families.  Indecency issues are not new, but nevertheless still an issue.  Stations are resisting government involvement in retransmission consent negotiations.  And many of the businesses and non-profit organizations receive government funding from foundations like the NEA, which opens up a number of policy issues in and of itself.

While our attention is increasingly brought to the issues that media faces today, Marcellus Alexander left us with some encouraging advice.  Do something that you like to do.  That you’re passionate about.  Life is short, so do what jazzes you because that is what you will be best at, and despite the challenges, the work will be fulfilling.

A Beer with Obama

Today at Eagle Publishing we talked a lot about elections and we talked about what wins votes, we talked about policy and entertainment. And throughout the conversation one thought kept coming back to my mind. The guys this morning talked about a rating system they had based on which candidate you’d rather have a beer with. Since when was THAT what made a good president of the United States of America?! Do you really (and more importantly should you really) want a president that would share any of the traits you look for in a wingman?

Every person we talk to seems to say “the people want “x”…” I get it, we’re a government by the people, for the people, of the people. Yeah yeah yeah. but to some point, how much do the people really know about what they need. Isn’t that, after all, why we elect people to make decisions for us?

So where then do you draw the line. How much do you cater to the uninformed, uneducated public? How much do you use keywords instead of intellectual content? How far do we let it go before all we are is a society of twitter feeds, dumbed down campaign messages, and funny talk shows. NO! The fact that Sarah Palin entered the realm of reality tv talk show crap is NOT good. It may be good for her, it may be what the people want, but it’s not good for the people.

I hate that it becomes about winning instead of about the right. (not the left vs. right right but the wrong vs. right right.) Someone needs to stand up for what they believe in. Someone needs to expect more out of our society. Someone needs to call them to a higher standard and remind them what’s important. Someone needs to tell them what they need.

Obama was right. We do need change. But what he brought and what our society thinks is change, is conformity, it’s a crowd, it’s a follower. How can you lead the people if you’re operating by their stipulations? Is it even possible?  It seems our government leaders are so afraid of biting the hand that feeds them (losing votes) that they won’t stand up for the principles they used to believe in (the principles for which they were elected). That is the downfall of our government, it’s not republican, it’s not democrat, right, left, liberal, conservative, House, Senate, President…. it’s the lack of leadership (creativity, innovation, courage, CHANGE) from the top, any “top”, all “tops.”