Why you should apply to be CICM intern

Jan 29, 2010

It’s that time of year again when Bryan Murley’s twitter feed is sprinkled with requests for CICM intern applications. As the very first CICM intern, I can tell you its worth every minute of your time. And since this is the last weekend to apply before the deadline, here’s my two cents.

The reasons

The endless connections: Before I was a CICM intern, no one on the twittersphere knew who I was. But after having my name published on the blog and having the opportunity to talk with students and educators in the industry, I could strengthen my professional relationships and my online branding. Since then, I’ve been involved with organizations like CoPress, Publish2 and Spot.Us.

Creative freedom: Bryan lets you do whatever you want with this internship (at least he did when I was around). It’s a chance for you to experiment with any crazy story-telling methods you want with an audience and a purpose.

Stay on the cutting edge: As a college journalist, you should want to know the latest and greatest going on with college media across the nation (and world). As CICM intern, you can get to know the big names and basically force yourself to stay on top of what people in the industry are doing and saying. Once you tap into that knowledge sphere, you won’t be able to unattach yourself.

Learn a blogging workflow: Sure, you could get an internship at a copy desk at your local paper where your hours are set in stone. Or, you could strengthen your ability to work on web-only deadlines and take part in collaborative, virtual editing through the CICM. And if you work with Bryan to install Edit Flow (CoPress’ workflow management plugin for WordPress), you can carry that editorial workflow experience into your college newsroom or even the professional newsroom.

Cha-ching: Although money shouldn’t be the primary reason you decide to take the internship, it’s one hell of a motivator. It’s rare to come across paid internships in the journalism field. $500 could buy you some sweet new multimedia equipment, books for next quarter, a month’s rent (or half  month’s rent if you live in a place like LA).

What I’d do if I could do it again:

  • More data collection (and subsequent analysis)
  • More interviews and reporting
  • More community building
  • More collaborative projects with other organizations
  • More tutorials (with video)

Also, if you take a look at my application essay, there were a few projects that I never got around to:

You have the weekend to write your own application essay. From the CICM blog:

How to apply: Send a copy of your resume and a 250-word essay (or post on your weblog or web site, even better) explaining what ideas you have for the site to me at scmurley@gmail.com. Include links to any multimedia you have produced in the past.

Be forewarned - I will be posting a poll for readers to vote on who is the best potential intern (results will be viewable only by me). However, the ultimate decision on the intern is made by the CICM directors. The winner’s name will be posted after they have been notified and accepted the internship.

Deadline for applications: Monday, Feb. 1, 2010

If you have any questions about my internship experience, post ‘em in the comments or shoot me an email: lauren-dot-rabaino-at-gmail-dot-com or the current intern, Jenna Staul, at cicmintern-at-gmail-dot-com. If you have any logistical questions, email Bryan Murley scmurley-at-gmail-dot-com. Good luck.

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Lauren’s New Year’s Resolutions 2010

Jan 01, 2010

Yes, it’s that time of year again. Unlike prior years when I’ve set New Year’s resolutions, this year is the start of many new things in my life. As of three weeks ago, I’m a college graduate. On Christmas I moved to LA to start a new life and career. So these are my resolutions. Feel free to steal a few of them.

1. Blog regularly: I haven’t blogged properly for about a year now. I took the CICM internship this time last year so I shifted my blogging habits there. Immediately after the termination of that internship, I began blogging for CoPress (and still do so today). You can find more of my journalism-related posts there, but for more casual, personal blog posts, the goal is to post something here at least once a week.

2. Become a better task manager: I’m taking on a lot of projects these days. I soon plan to launch a new site for my hometown radio station, KTIP. I’m finishing up freelance work for Spot.Us and Cal Poly University Housing. Now that I’m graduated, I’m doing work for CoPress and I’m full time at Publish2. I recently started using Remember the Milk to help myself stay organized, but if you know of any better tools, throw ‘em in the comments.

3. Stop being an anti-social freak. Anyone who knows me in real life (i.e. people who didn’t meet me through Twitter), knows that me + social = fail. It could be because I’m a workaholic, but I’m also partially a workaholic to avoid being social. Since I’ll be rooming with the lovely Vanessa Bezic and living in a cultural hub of the country, Los Angeles, I plan to take advantage of the city and network myself silly. I got a good start last night by kicking off the new year at Noel Baron’s home.

4. Read more books. This one is self explanatory. I want to start with the classics that I never read in high school or college (starting with Crime and Punishment and Great Expectations). Then I’ll move on to this list (stolen from Jane Lehr’s women and gender studies class).

5. Go to more conferences. I rarely went to journalism conferences because (1) I couldn’t afford it and (2) I couldn’t afford to miss class. Now that I’m a graduate with a job, both of those factors are eliminated. I’m also working with organizations that have team members spread across the country, so meeting with them in person whenever I can is important.

6. Build a WordPress theme from scratch. I’m perfectly capable of doing this. I just haven’t. Don’t ask why. Perhaps time and reason were the restraints. Now I’m giving myself the time, which is reason enough.

7. Master PHP and start on Django. Working at CoPress (and now with Publish2), my role has always been to design something pretty in Photoshop, then hand it off to the boys for execution. After reading Megan Taylor’s list of hacker-journalists (comprised entirely of men), I have a goal of being able to add “developer” to my Twitter bio in addition to designer and journalist.

8. Pitch a story using Spot.Us. I’m not working as reporter in the trenches for my first post-graduate job. As a result, I don’t want to lose touch with my reporting roots. Now that I’m living in LA where Spot.Us opened its second branch, I intend to get to know the issues in this area and use the site to pitch and report as a freelancer and publish it on my own.

9. Stay married to my career. I was pretty good at this in college, but post-college, I’m ready to really dive into the work I’m doing.

10. Learn how to cook (well). In college I lived off of salads, sandwiches and ramen out of practicality. Now it’s time to finally eat well to keep up energy levels required to follow through with the rest of this list. The goal is to master one dish a week. Over ambitious? Perhaps.

That’s all. Peace. Happy 2010.

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WWGD: A book for journos and non-journos alike

Dec 23, 2009

Inspired by Mark Luckie’s recent post about great holiday gifts for newsies, I thought I’d throw in my two cents. I recently read Jeff Jarvis’ What Would Google Do and recommend it as a last-minute holiday gift– for both techy journalist friends and non-journalism family members.

It’s the perfect last-minute gift for anyone with a slight tinge of geek in their blood or the old-fashioned curmudgeons in need of enlightenment. If you’re not sold, here’s a quick little taste of what the book is about:

GoogleTimes: What Would Google Do?

If that doesn’t hit the spot, Brady Teufel has a great list of journalistic, creative non-fictions that would also make for great Christmas presents.

Happy Holidays, everyone. See you in 2010.

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Quick way to boost Facebook fans

Nov 26, 2009

Although I’m no longer the sole keeper of the Mustang Daily fan page on Facebook, the editors who are in charge don’t have blogs (what a shame). So I’m going to pass along a little tip that tripled Mustang Daily fans in a week.

It’s simple and perhaps obvious: invite all your friends. And tell your entire staff to invite all their friends. And all their friends to invite all their friends. Once people see “So-n-so became a fan of mustangdaily.net” their newsfeeds, they follow suit. It’s a domino effect. Everyone on the Mustang Daily staff invited all their hundreds of friends to join, and in a week we went from 290 to 840 fans.

Something else learned from this experiment is that the name of your fan page is vitally important. You may notice that 290 fans is not a lot. But because we named our page “mustangdaily.net,” anyone searching for “Mustang Daily” on Facebook won’t find our page. That’s a huge, irreversible mistake.

So name wisely and invite heartily. And Happy Thanksgiving!

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The senior project journey begins

Oct 01, 2009

Of all the scholarly articles I’ve read, nothing has paved a clearer path for my senior project than the concluding words of a speech from John Temple, former editor of the Rocky Mountain News:

Know what business you’re in.
Know your customers.
Know your competition.
Know your goal.
Have a strategy and be committed to pursuing it.
Measure, measure, measure.
Keep new ventures free from the rules of the old.
Let the people running a new venture do what’s best for their business, regardless of the potential impact on the old.
To compete in a new medium, you have to understand it.
Invest in R&D.

So now I embark on the 10-week journey of discovering the perfect ingredients for an online newsorg business model. It’s not going to be easy, but at least I’m entering it with the right mindset — that’s 90 percent of the problem at newspapers.

This quote from Temple, (which I first saw in a tweet from Jay Rosen) is especially powerful:

“We had all the advantages and let it slip away. We couldn’t give up the idea that we were newspaper companies.”

Over the next few weeks, I plan to specifically research the following elements referenced by Temple. Here are my preliminary thoughts:

Know what business you’re in: My hypothetical newsorg would be in the business of sharing and spreading relevant, timely information with my community as quickly and accurately as possible.

Know your customers: My customer base would primarily be the community in which my newsorg is situated. I would have to find specific demographics for the exact age, gender and race of those users and use surveys to determine where and how they get their news.

Know your competition: My competition would primarily be the main newspaper for my city. If there are any local blogs, I would need to identify them. In addition to news competitors, a main competitor online is time.  I’m competing against sites like Facebook where users spend 21 minutes/visit.

Know your goal: I am going to be honest. I don’t have a goal yet. I know part of it is is to create a site with news that readers are invested in. The quality of my content will likely play a huge role in the development of my business model. There is also a goal of generating enough revenue to keep my newsorg running and thriving (I’m not necessarily looking to generate hundreds of thousands a year).

Keep new ventures free from the rules of the old: Temple acknowledges that the Rocky Mountain News failed because they saw themselves as strictly “newspapers” rather than seekers and spreaders of news — disconnected from the medium.

To compete in a new medium, you have to understand it: This will mean understanding and measuring analytics, observing user trends and noticing my own habits on the web. This will mean knowing how the web is changing and how users are changing. This will mean knowing who advertisers want to reach and how to meet those goals.

Invest in R&D: Research and Development is an on-going project. It’s not something you do before launching or when anticipating a change. It’s something that should be continuous and never-ending. And that research should be put to use to use as new revelations come about. I intend to hire a person for my hypothetical newsorg who can stay on top of R&D.

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