I’ve written about social media here more than I’d probably like to admit. These social networking sites are transforming the way we receive our news and information. There’s no secret there. But they keep popping up, so much so that I’ve stopped joining them, because I never know when enough’s enough. Newspapers are still figuring [...]

How many e-mail addresses do you have in your address book? Sources have been important to journalists of all shape and caliber for the profession’s entire history, perhaps even more so for freelancers, who are guiding a ship and finding their story pitches on their own. But in an age of social networks and e-mail [...]

I have at least three fairly different resumes stored in my Google Documents, ready to e-mail to editors, mentors, advisers or welfare agents. For Philadelphia’s newest admitted freelance journalist, it’s a must because I am never quite certain exactly how I am branding myself and for what sort of work I might be pursuing. How [...]

Last week I announced my intentions to give one of the hardest professional roads a try. I’m trying to be a freelance journalist – in Philadelphia, a city in a persistent media hiring freeze. So if it’s always important to brand yourself, now is a particularly important juncture for this underemployed writer. For more than [...]

Google Reader I am back. Last month I returned from five weeks backpacking Europe and moved into a new home in Frankford, a neighborhood in lower Northeast Philadelphia. Somehow, even though I was travel blogging and video podcasting at WeDontSpeaktheLanguage.com, my month-plus European tour was an Internet vacation (IV) for me. It was a chance [...]

I was fairly late in joining Youtube – one year ago today, the day after I launched this Web site. My roommate first told me about the video sharing and hosting site in November 2005, a year after it launched and a year before Google purchased it. However, I didn’t even think to join it [...]

You’re a member of a dozen or more social networking sites. Same goes for someone you’ve never met but know online, professionally or otherwise. When does that online relationship get weird? I’ve never met Greg Linch. He’s the editor at large for online and multimedia at The Miami Hurricane, the student newspaper pf the University [...]

How well do you e-mail? A few weeks ago I came across a simple, intuitive but worthwhile post on Seth Godin’s blog – an e-mail checklist. I send lots of e-mails. In searching for a new job, in looking for interviews, in sending pitches for freelance stories. So, I am immediately incorporating a few of [...]

Somebody hire me. I have returned from more than a month of backpacking Europe and travel podcasting at WeDontSpeaktheLanguage.com. Now I am excited to put all I have learned to work in one of the world’s great cities. So, here’s my idealistic plea. I want challenging work in Philadelphia; work that requires me to write [...]

As a young, aspiring journalist, I want to know what it is I need to have, what I need to know and what I need to learn. I’ve spoken to some friends, colleagues and with a few professional internships in my past, I think I am ready to fill the vaccum. What needs to be [...]