Journalism in the 21st Century

I've found I need to go on vacation in order to unwind. It's impossible to do it around the house, where I am chained to this laptop - like it or not. I can't stand to see a headline on the crawl above this page -- there's one now! -- without wanting to pounce on it. And it did not used to be like this. Twenty-five years ago when I entered the field, we didn't have computers; we had typewriters. Charming, antiquated, loud, clunky, wonderful typewriters. We purists pounded out our thoughts on a manual. I got through college that way. White-out (Liquid Paper) was our friend. When we were done writing articles, we had better things to do - like date, visit with friends and go for walks in the woods. Nowadays, though, no self-respecting journalist is caught dead spending more than an hour away from her e-mail. I find that I can miss jobs, stories, gossip, you name it if I so much as take a long shower. That's why I'm so sick at my stomach that I'm ready to l...

Anderson Cooper was "roughed up by thugs" this week - as he posted on Twitter - and many now wonder if this is the new normal for journos. By new normal I mean, any self-respecting scribe will earn his stripes traveling halfway across the world and not flinch if sent into rock-throwing range of a crazed Muslim brother or frantic eighty-year-old democracy-hungry doctor. Maybe I'm a wimp, but I'll take my journalism work the way I would take any job: without putting my life in danger. I didn't become a cop or firewoman or President of the United States. I am a journalist. I am not required to put my life on the line in order to get to the story. To see CNN and the New York Times and Fox News and whomever else jockeying for stories and standing space on the square over there in Cairo...well, it's just a little unsettling. More than a little. There have always been war correspondents. And war photographers. These are noble professions -- but they stand apart from ...

The Internet is not only here to stay, but within the next decade most of us will be reading the latest novel on a palm-held device. This will make the concept of dog-earing a page rather obsolete, but then again dogs can go back to keeping their ears in tact. With the web and all the writing on it, fact checking can be overlooked in the name of speed. "Don't believe everything you read," was never more pertinent than today with the modern blog/first-person tretise from an unknown author pounding the keys from his Apple in Peoria. Yet, one should not fear that facts are not being checked. Goodness knows most people, especially in this economy, have better things to do than write if they can help themselves. For those of us who must write, obviously we cannot help ourselves. So of course, the last thing we in this latter category care to do is ruin our reputations by going sloppy on the facts. But what about the teenagers blogging about their classmates or the hungry new r...

It always amuses me that freelancers are usually the last to be paid. After all, we buy our own (very expensive) health insurance policies, manage our own books, fix our own computers and forego vacations. Also, many of us have been forced into freelancing due to the economy. Some of us have applied for several hundred journalism jobs, only to find said jobs are now non-existant. We are then "happy" to sell an article here and there. Why then do editors and publishers so often pay us late or play games with our payments? I am not sure why, say, a carpenter is paid one half upfront for his fine woodworking but a freelance journalist must wait up to eight weeks for a payment. I once asked for a deposit upfront, and the prospective client acted like I'd swallowed marbles and was asking him to fish them out. I therefore appeal to all publishers and editors to pay us quickly. That means under 30 days, which is often too long for hungry writers to wait. Don't assume we'...

I read this week that the New York Times could possibly trim up to 100 staffers if employees don't take enough buy-outs. I am hardly angry at the Times' management. They are doing what they have to do, and from what I've read, none of the executives there want to resort to layoffs. Why not charge readers for the online edition? Yes, I would hate it - but not as much as I'd hate losing the quality of reporting I get from the Times. We are living in a frighteningly ignorant society, one in which the blog-du-jour (this one included!) is being gobbled up in the name of "news." Young people today are in danger of confusing the difference between a Pulitzer Prize-level type report such as is currently running by David Rohde in the Times (detailing his account being held by the Taliban) and the run-of-the-mill posting on Huffington. Now, I have nothing against the Huffington Report - it's valuable. And many of the writers who post there are fine scribes. Yet comp...

My advice: ** Business degree is ok, but if one decides to be some other kind of journalist, it won't necessarily help ** Best is a journalism degree from a prestigious school (NYU, Columbia, if that's possible) ** Get clips asap - even for free at the beginning, in areas that one wants to write on; try NOT to write for free, but a couple clips are ok ** Get an internship under one's belt right away ** Don't step on anyone's toes; burn any bridges - ever. This is a business full of huge egos. Make sure you're prepared to kiss a lot of behinds! ** Have a financial cushion; a second trick if you will (sales, financial analyst, etc.) to help you through the down times ** Learn a second language. At a recent networking event in Manhattan, one recruiter from a top wire service was desperate for someone who spoke Russian! ** Network but don't be a fool; it's important to help others but not at the expense of your own livelihood. Others may disagree, b...