How a journalist can best use MySpace

MySpace is lame, so how come many journalists are on the site and, as I posted recently, I now have a MySpace page too?

In last week’s post, I described it largely as just another front in the world over branding my name online.

Others see it for slightly different purposes.

MSNBC commentator and Philadelphia Daily News editorial board member Flavia Colgan has a page. I can only speculate, but, judging from what she shares on her page, I suspect she sees it as an easy way to help brand her identity – her name, her position and her work.

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My internship with the Philadelphia Business Journal

With the editorial staff of the Philadelphia Business Journal on May 5, 2008.

Last Thursday, during a week revisit to Philadelphia, I shared happy hour with a few friends from my internship with the Philadelphia Business Journal, with which I had a great six month-internship the last semester of my college career.

With a little work, I got tons of solid clips and great experience (detailed below) with the Journal, and so I thought it was worth pointing that out.

The primary responsibilities of editorial interns with PBJ, owned by American City Business Journals, are to keep up their pages that follow the region’s philanthropic community, profile business leaders and all managerial movements in and around the city. While I pitched other stories of greater size, these base-level jobs never offered anything more than a few hundred words. Still, I worked hard to make them worth reading – if only to keep me focused and interested.

The internship meant a lot more than all of that, though.

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Are things changing at the New Jersey Herald?

The newspaper of record for northwest New Jersey is the Herald. As such, it was the first newspaper I knew, the first read and the first I learned to criticize. But things may be changing.

The New Jersey Herald, now active six days a week, has published continuously since 1829. It is like many small, rural newspapers. With small communities, investigation is sometimes rare. Might Publisher Bruce Tomlinson and Editor Chris Frear avoid criticizing potential advertising streams when their coverage area is less than 150,000 people and their circulation is less than 15,000? Of course, but they’ve made a series of changes in recent years – like dropping their old God awful masthead seen above – and I’ve seen more of late.

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The new Facebook bumbles on

From EverybodySucksButUs.com

Even if I am just a couple months into my Facebook life, I believe it is fair to say there is lots of complaint against its new version – beyond just common resistance to change. I’ve jumped into things with Facebook – and MySpace for that matter – so I think I’ve got a sense of how obsessively people take their social networking.

Recently I posted a collection of the most widespread and best articulated rails against the new form. That post on why the new Facebook sucks is just a small matter.

After that post, I was invited to join a Facebook group called People agains the New Facebook System – with more than 100,000 members. There are others here, here, here, and here – I’m sure there are more.

I got a comment on my post mentioning one could revert back to the old version – which I did. There was a delay in the rollout, but now – there’s no going back, the new version is the only version.

Does any of that actually matter? Any thoughts?

My Flickr account reawakened

I joined Flickr in February. But it sat there with just one photo.

That has changed.

I always thought I would use Flickr in a more limited way – just photographs I took with some purpose and others that carry some meaning. I’ll continue to use Slide to collect slideshows of any travel or experiences. My Flickr account will be more selective. Perhaps that is for my own sense of organization, but I like the idea for now.

Does anyone else do something similar?

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A post-graduate internship done: what comes next?

Working in the Capitol bureau of the Patriot-News in Harrisburg in August 2008.

My last day in Harrisburg for came at the end of last month, with the close of my lease with the International House Aug. 30 and the end of my post-graduate internship with the Pennsylvania Legislative Correspondents’ Association (PLCA).

I came home with lots of experience, dozens of great references, and a pile of clips. Browse my clips by publication here.

I pitched my own stories, was sent to dull and fascinating hearings, and got great clips, including front cover, A1 bylines for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Patriot-News and the Morning Call – not too bad. Below are my best six clips of the summer:

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Someone who doesn't know me actually used my reporting

Ostensibly, journalists write for others.

So I get really excited when readers respond to what I write. That can go further when someone uses my reporting for broader purposes. A common rag on newspapers and most media is that their reporting isn’t in-depth enough. Of course, the response is that one can’t track trends without daily coverage.

It feels great to be reminded that that isn’t a lie.

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Suggestions for the Philadelphia Inquirer

I finished a two-week rotation in the Harrisburg bureau of the Philadelphia Inquirer last month, as part of my internship with the Pennsylvania Legislative Correspondents’ Association. I’ve since moved on, but because I am in Philadelphia, I thought I would share some thoughts that came to mind about improving the third oldest daily newspaper in the country.

In Spring 2006, as a sophomore, I had a transcendent internship with the paper’s city desk. I will always remember that as a seminal moment in my life. It was the first time I understood the power, the problems and the potential of one of the largest, oldest and most respected newspapers in the world.

After my second, briefer stint, some thoughts came to mind.

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