(Written by me for Medill News Service on 10/29/09)

With Halloween coming up, here’s a horror story to start you off with: A recruiter at one of the most prominent newspapers in the country compared the current state of journalism to “making sausage” this week.

Peter Perl, assistant managing editor for personnel at The Washington Post, visited our newsroom and didn’t exactly sugarcoat the current state of the news business. (Just suffice it to say we didn’t file out of the conference room with a corner office on 15th.) It’s called content now, not stories, Perl said. Processing content rather than newsgathering and writing. It’s a new language he admits has taken some getting used to.

“It’s like the stages of grief,” Perl told us. “You have to make peace with that.”

Spooky, huh?

Into the void: A sampling of Medill student Web sites

 

This year, journalism schools across the country will be churning out tech-savvy reporters by the thousands as the media industry decides what to do with itself. Most of us have Web sites, and nearly all of us have Twitter. The question, then, is this: Will any of this stuff help us do a better job as journalists? Beyond that — can it help us get a job?

So, using non-traditional methods like Twitter and Gchat, we contacted people in journalism — starting with the guy who reads your resumes — to ask what works and what doesn’t when it comes to journalists engaging the web.

Will multimedia know-how make me an attractive candidate?

“The same things that would distinguish you in print are the same things that distinguish you on the Web,” Perl said.

* Perl said Post recruiters critique blog entries in the same way they would print clips. Bloggers: Is there an element of enterprise to your posts? How about basic background reporting? (No surprise here, but Perl pointed to Ezra Klein as a sterling example of someone who blogs with authority.)
* Be aware that what you’re going to tweet will get back to you, Perl warned. In other words, yes, you will be Googled.
* Clips, Perl said, are “where it’s at.” When asked if he’d take a journalist with a slew of multimedia skills or a highly-skilled reporter and writer, the latter will win out every time.
* Even if it is just “processing content,” Perl said, the best journalists still report and deliver facts. They just consider the web as another tool to get out their reporting.

Should all journalists use Twitter?

Nope, said Jay Rosen, a New York University faculty member, author and blogger with more than 27,000 followers on Twitter, many of them eager to see what he’ll say next about the state of the industry. Here’s what he wrote to us via Gchat:

” … I would definitely say not every journalist needs to be on Twitter …

I would say it stronger … don’t go on unless you know why you are on …

… rules like “you have to have a blog,” or you “have to be on social media” are promulgated by people who have not studied it well; they are a substitute for knowledge and learning …

and that is on the record …”

New media guru Jay Rosen gives his tips. Graphic via Creative Commons images

 

Beyond that, here’s a quick primer Rosen recommended journalists start with to get themselves up to speed with blogging and Twittering:

* Put a bio up that reflects your interests on your Twitter profile.
* Use the single URL they allow you to link to your blog or to a home page of yours with more information about you.
* If you don’t have one already, make a blog or homepage for yourself at a hosting site like True Slant.
* Then, depending on your area of interest, start following people who Tweet links and ideas about that interest so that you have what Rosen called a useful inflow.
* “It’s initially about what you are bringing in, not putting out.”

How do working journalists feel about engaging an audience through social media?

Hoping to engage the community, I also asked journalists who follow me on Twitter to let me know how they felt about using social media tactics on the job. Every response I got was positive. Here’s a sampling:

So there, from the mouths of experts, you have it.

As for me, I could just say that everything I need to know about branding myself as a journalist I learned in kindergarten: Be nice, share and learn from your peers. Then you just hope common sense kicks in naturally.

Katie Rogers, who is set to graduate from Medill in December, is from Elkhart, Ind., and holds a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Loyola University Chicago. Before coming to Medill, she was a staff reporter for The Elkhart Truth, her hometown paper. Her work has appeared in The Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Journal and McClatchy Newspapers. She wrote this opinion piece for Washington Reporting 2.0., an occasional column about the experience of reporting.