UT panel highlights Web media jobs, salaries
How's this for a diverse panel to discuss getting a job in online media: project manager at E. W. Scripps, Internet marketing manager with Lucasfilm, senior online producer at WBIR and multimedia editor at MSN. No, Yoda didn't make an appearance.
This panel of media professionals was brought together as part of the University of Tennessee School of Journalism and Electronic Media's Scripps Convergence Week. My fellow pundits and I all have ties to the college's news Web site Tennessee Journalist, or TNJN.com.
I thoroughly enjoyed my experience on the panel, especially since I hadn't had the chance to met either Peggy Collins -- she is based out of New York City -- or Katie Granju, though I read her blog for WBIR on a daily basis. I worked with Staci Wolfe at Scripps before she moved with her now-fiance and former Scripps developer Jay Baird to San Francisco.
Speaking to journalism students about the industry is fast becoming a passion of mine since leaving academia at the University of Alabama. In fact, I've managed to rack up a number of lectures at UT, UA and my undergraduate university Appalachian State.
Not only is it energizing to be immersed in a learning environment, but I'm constantly impressed by how creative college students are these days. And this is a good thing considering the state of the media.
The theme of yesterday's panel centered on the working stiffs providing input on how students can best prepare themselves for the real world.
My current job as project manager is somewhat removed from the front-lines of newspaper.com, but considering I speak everyday with site managers, sales managers and online editors with all of Scripps 15 newspaper Web sites I can attest to the challenges they face. That and I spent a few years in Roanoke.
My fellow panelists and I covered the usual ground: start blogging, get a Web site for your portfolio and learn a little about popular Web technologies. And I'm glad we got a chance to discuss the ever-popular gripe (for journalists) of pay: namely, how much does someone in online media earn? (Hint: It's not much. Love the job, not the paycheck.)
The question of pay in today's media job market is especially confusing. On one hand you have newspapers and television stations hitting all-time-lows for readers and viewers -- this means less advertising/revenue. But on the other hand, you have soaring opportunities for Web content.
Unfortunately, I think the times of leveraging your online skills for that higher-paying job in the newsroom are coming to an end. Many newspapers can no longer afford to hire new positions, and just as many are cutting jobs by the handful (Scripps included). The media jobs of the near future are not online or print: they're converged.
The higher paying jobs in media will go to those with innovative solutions to complex problems, of which there are many. You don't need to be a Flash whiz or a Djangonaut, but you do need to know when technology can be leveraged to tell a better story or present the data in a more meaningful way.
A journalism grad entering today's market has three options:
- Learn the skills needed to tell a story or present data in print, online or with video
- Specialize in a given technology (Flash, Django, databases), and seek out opportunities within the media that utilizes your special skill-set
- Take your honed writing and analytic capabilities to the business world
I, for one, am excited to see what path the students that make up TNJN and yesterday's audience will choose. They might save the newspapers yet.
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