I think the Philadelphia Inquirer is doing at least one of its online videos right – mostly.
The storied newspaper’s business section puts out a daily, noontime, three to five-minute news show called Philadelphia Business Today, and it has developed into one of the best newspaper-produced videos online. What are they doing right? What are they doing wrong? What can newspapers across the country learn. And Is anyone watching?
You gotta give something to get something, man.
So, I’m tired of newspapers ignoring the details of an RSS feed. In a mobile world, I have to believe that choosing what Internet news, information, and blog updates come to you will be the future.
So why aren’t newspapers figuring out the details?
Continue reading Give an excerpt of your stories in a feed, get more clicks
It may seem like another cost, another obstacle to your dream. That’s because it is. Journalism students face the challenge of getting professional experience from newspapers and magazines that often don’t pay. Buying the multimedia equipment that would have to be part of anyone’s journalism tool box does cost money that many young journalists, fresh freelancers or recently-unemployed reporters don’t have.
So, I took three years, much of my own money and at least two gifts to accumulate what equipment I think to be important for a developed, independent multimedia journalist. Yesterday, I was thrilled to be given the last of the below items as my family Christmas gift.
All that said, these are tools, not rules. While I am by no means independently wealthy, much of the world doesn’t have the financial resources with which I am blessed.
So, here’s my triage of multimedia equipment, what you need most.
If even time doesn’t offer an opportunity for you to build on this tool box. Take heart. Nothing on the below list could replace hard work, smarts and persistence…. lots and lots of persistence.
It’s Christmastime in the city.
U.S. center cities of all shapes and sizes can expect a wave of traffic, from the exurbs, the suburbs, the neighborhoods and outside the region. They come for shopping and sightseeing and, really, the setting that your city will create, with lights, decorations, atmosphere, a tree and cheer.
So, on Christmas Eve, why not figure out how we can do it better.
Continue reading Center City Philadelphia at Christmas: how our city and yours can do it better
Choosing carefully when to post to your Web site, whether you are a newspaper or a blogger, is supposed to be a boon to your traffic.
Insightful Web analytics, they tell me, are the golden ticket to blossoming attention. So what time should you be posting?
Continue reading When to forward post to meet your Web traffic: the busiest times on the Internet
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 clients, it’s important to reevaluate how you’re collecting, retaining and organizing your sources.
Continue reading How developed is your contact list: freelance journalists better become collectors
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 many resumes do you have? Are you ready to bust them out the moment someone of even the vaguest professional merit comes within sniffing distance?
Continue reading How many resumes do you have?: paper promotion of the young and unemployed
There are many things in this world I cannot do.
One of those I am reminded of regularly is photography. I have the pleasure and curse of being surrounded by a host of genuinely talented young photogs.
But I have had some limited experience and even less training, so when compiling a collection of freelance services I could offer, as announced earlier this week, I listed photography.
At least one of my friends, among the more talented photographers of my talented contemporaries, took issue with this. For freelancers out there, it’s important to understand what and why you can and should offer potential clients.
Continue reading Can I offer services in photography, Web design without formal training
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 a year now though, leading up to and continuing beyond my college graduation, I have employed and developed a growing online community of methods to take control over my Web presence.
I am obsessively trying to find ways to market myself online like more and more multimedia journalists of all ages and experiences. So, what are you doing to promote your name?
Continue reading Marketing yourself online: your byline is your brand
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 to look at what social networking devices are easiest to put on hold.
Continue reading Web presences, social networking that can be put on hold
