“HOW TO LAND YOUR FIRST JOURNALISM JOB: ADVICE FROM INDUSTRY INSIDERS”

Are you a graduating senior who wants to work in journalism or media? Or are you looking for your first internship at a newspaper, television/radio station, or website? Come to an exclusive event to talk to Los Angeles-based reporters, producers, editors, freelance journalists, and bloggers to get advice straight from the insiders.

You will get job hunting tips from award-winning journalists who have worked for KTLA 5, People, NBA.com, Yahoo!, The New York Times, National Public Radio and other outlets.  We will also provide complimentary lunch with the journalists and small group discussions based on your specific beat or media interest.

WHEN: Saturday, May 15th, 2010, 11am-1:30pm
WHERE: University of California, Los Angeles
118 Kerckhoff Hall 308 Westwood Plaza Los Angeles, CA 90024 (look for signs)

= PANELIST LINE-UP =

• BRYAN CHU — Bryan Chu is a reporter for NBA.com who covers the Los Angeles Lakers. His career has included stops at the San Francisco Chronicle, San Antonio Express-News and Albany Times Union. He has also freelanced for ESPN the Magazine and The Associated Press. During his career, Chu has won numerous national and local awards for his work as a sports and criminal reporter. Chu graduated from UCLA and worked at the UCLA Daily Bruin all four years as a sports reporter.
• PHIL IGE — Phil Ige is a videographer at KTLA Channel 5 in Los Angeles. His favorite mantra about his job: “Without us, it’s radio.” He takes a lot of pride in being a TV Photojournalist. Phil has worked at ABC (KERO) in Bakersfield, at the ABC affiliate in Santa Barbara, Norfolk, VA, at the NBC and WB affiliates in San Diego, and now he’s back home in L.A at KTLA.
• COREY TAKAHASHI — Corey Takahashi is an independent journalist, audio producer, and photographer. He has worked as a staffer and freelancer in the print and broadcast industries, and he began his career as an editor at a start-up hip-hop magazine in New York. Corey currently contributes to NPR and PRI, among other media outlets. His freelance print work has appeared in the Best Music Writing anthology, The New York Times, and Vibe magazine.http://www.coreytakahashi.com/
• KEN LEE — Ken Lee has worked as a reporter for PEOPLE magazine for the past six years. He covers the courts/crime beat, mostly for PEOPLE.com. Prior to this, he was a freelance reporter based in the Middle East for two years, covering the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and the Iraq war mostly for the New York Daily News and the BBC Online.
• KIM BUI — Blogger, social media and web producer (Consumertrack)
• LAWRENCE YEE — Senior web producer and programmer, specializing in entertainment coverage (Yahoo!, Emmy and Webby winner for Olympics coverage)

= LUNCH & REFRESHMENTS WILL BE PROVIDED =

= FREE & OPEN TO ALL STUDENTS =

RSVP: The event is free and open to all, but please RSVP on Facebook at http://bit.ly/AAJAstudentpanel
HOW TO GET HERE:
Park: Structure 6 for $10: Enter from Westwood Boulevard and Strathmore
Transit: Take the Metro (2, 305, or the 720), Culver City Bus (6), or Big Blue Bus

TO LEARN MORE:

Go to http://aaja.org to learn about the Asian American Journalist Association

It was almost as if the clock had been turned back a decade.

Asian American Journalist Association board member Subha Ravindhran, a fill-in anchor and general assignment reporter for KABC 7, would have been a USC college student in that scenario.

The community college students in attendance for the 55^th annual Journalism Association of Community College convention at the Renaissance Hotel on April 9 were not receiving their news from sleek hardwire devices with internet capacity; there wasn’t an Apple iPad or Amazon Kindle in sight. Newspapers, gawky broadsheets, were in high fashion, visible from every corner of the convention room.  Stack upon stack of newspaper rested on a table near the far corner edges of the room.  Student representatives from 45 community colleges across California roamed the hotel facilities; a conspicuous herd of students were visible in a convention room, where breakfast catered by the hotel was being offered, where they sipped coffee, picked at their plates, and peered over a competing university’s newspaper.

Ravindhran, Trang Ho, a reporter for Investor’s Business Daily and also an AAJA board member, and another representative from AAJA, were in attendance to meet 620 students and faculty from California and Rhode Island, informing students about the opportunities that AAJA membership had to offer at one of largest community college journalism events hosted in the state.

Hours earlier, Ravindhran was in the KABC newsroom past midnight, after covering a fundraiser for two Orange County military personal who had died overseas.  One of the youngest reporters at KABC 7, Ravindhran attended USC before receiving her first television job in Amarillo, Texas, a city six hours west of Dallas.

“It was a great place to start,” Ravindhran said.  “I hit the ground running as soon as I got the job.  I was doing live shots, putting stories together, basically getting everything I needed for the tape I used to get my next job.  It was a very lucrative experience for me.”

Ravindhran answered questions posed by students, and also let them know about the bountiful opportunities that the upcoming August AAJA national convention, the first in 17 years to come to LA, offered.

“Most people do not know, but AAJA is one of the leading journalism organizations in the nation,” Ravindhran said.  “You do not have to be Asian to join.  Our mission is to promote diversity in the newsroom.  People who join get access to job posting, to network, to attend our national convention…  AAJA is just a great platform for people who want to be part of this industry, to network, to get their foot in the door, and to build a camaraderie with other people in the same field.  It’s a great community to join. “

The convention included an opening day presentation from California Watch, a recently launched investigative news website, and offered 70 workshops and 13 on-the-spot competitions for community college students.

Description of the department:
The Editorial team is responsible for publishing the content on the FOXSports.com site. We edit sports news stories and entertainment from business partners, exclusive writers, and wire feeds, then packaging the content to present it in attractive and innovative ways.

Current projects and tasks that will be assigned to the intern(s):
The Editorial intern will assist in a variety of tasks, including but not limited to:

1. Content Management. Become familiar with our Content Management System (CMS) and learn to crate content into the CMS, including stories, polls, and HTML and video components.

2. Copyediting. Reviewing AP content from the wires to find errors; back-reading content on the site for consistent use of AP and House style; advanced interns will also proofread, considering clarity and grammar at an earlier stage.

3. Updating the Site. Gaining an understanding of the content ranking process and physically participating in the transitions (learning why and how we change out a story or move content through the site).

4. Developing Content. Examine what resonates with our audience (through questioning editors for anecdotal evidence and also looking at statistical data) and then pitching ideas – in particular, making suggestions for engaging “top 10″ gallery concepts, and then executing those ideas (finding the photos on AP and Getty, writing captions, putting the images together in the CMS, and finally publishing and relating/inlining to similarly themed content).

5. Art and image research. We strive to create centerpiece (CP) presentations with a unique visual difference. Interns will examine the question of how to best illustrate content, from light-hearted opinion pieces and quirky video presentations to highlight reels or serious news topics. They will then participate in the building the presentations, working with the editors and photo editors to appropriately pair headlines and blurbs to the visual presentation.

Learning objectives:
At the conclusion of the internship, the intern will have learned:

1. How editors use a CMS to control and manage mass quantities of content.
2. How to copyedit content with the use of a style guide.
3. How and why content is moved throughout the site on a daily basis.
4. What attracts readers to a piece of content and how to retain their interest, as well as the relationship between various pieces of content (and how that increases reader time on the site).
5. How a visual presentation works together with the words to pull in readers or viewers.
6. Interns will also learn about market audiences, how to write effective headlines, how social media is used to promote content on the site, how news budgets are used and how concepts go from idea to finished published content.

Qualifications:
•Must have an interest in sports
•Must have an interest in internet media, publishing or journalism
•Must be tech-savvy and comfortable working on PCs and learning new software
•Must have strong communication skills
•Must be respectful of journalistic rules, but be willing to have fun with stories and their presentation
•Prefer strong research skills
•Prefer strong organizational skills
•Prefer strong interpersonal skills
•Prefer strong writing skills

Here’s how to apply
1. Go to www.foxcareers.com
2. Select Job Search
3. Select Fox Broadcasting for company; Internships for job category; California for state and city for Los Angeles
4. Select Summer Internship- Interactive Content (Foxsports.com)
5. Log in and apply

GLENDALE, Calif. – Students from around Southern California gathered at KABC Studios on March 27 to get advice from top professionals in journalism at the AAJA Career Workshop for Students, as the panel of experts explained how to get a job in journalism and go on to success.

KABC-TV evening news anchor David Ono joined the panel as the moderator. Four panelists represented major media outlets, and each spoke about their journalism experience and gave students career advice.

Millie Martinez, executive producer at KABC-TV, stressed the importance of a well-written cover letter by reading examples, which ranged from simple to sublime. Martinez was touched by a prospective intern’s passion for the field. “I need to know something that makes me say, ‘I want to meet this person,’” she said.

In addition, she said to apply to many internships and to learn as much as possible about every department by asking questions.

Another panelist who emphasized cover letters and internships was Randy Hagihara, senior editor for recruitment at the Los Angeles Times. Like Martinez, he wants to read letters that convey a student’s enthusiasm rather than information summarized from their resume.

Hagihara said that he is always happy to talk to students. He advised aspiring journalists to have the following trait: “It’s important to have people who come into the business to be immensely curious. Curiosity is a requisite for good reporting.”

Ken Lee, a reporter who focuses on courts and crimes for People magazine, said the hardest part of his job is being on call to quickly report stories. Never refuse an assignment no matter how large or small the story, he said, and “treat every story like it could win a Pulitzer.”

He also said to not be afraid to freelance since a person could meet new contacts and collect a diverse range of clips.

Lawrence Yee, senior content producer at Yahoo!, also encouraged freelance writing through blogging. Consider your interests when writing and write constantly, he said.

As a freelance blogger, a person could easily post their work though it “has to be right and has to be accurate,” Yee said. He cautioned students to be careful with posting unwanted information on the Internet, because everything is searchable and permanent.

At the end of the presentation, students were invited to ask the panelists questions they had about the field. Marlene Perez, a senior majoring in broadcast journalism at California State University, Fullerton, learned about the event from an e-mail her college counselor sent. She said, “They answered a lot of the questions that I had in my head. They were very genuine and very real.”

“I think Ken was very real and he held nothing back,” Perez continued. “I think that’s what gets them [the journalists] out there. They have to find the real stories, the truth. That’s what reporting is about.”

After the panel discussion, the students were led on a studio tour, which included Studio A and the news and control rooms, by Diane Medina, manager of diversity programs and community relations for KABC-TV. For some students, entering the set was a surreal moment. Kelly Stringham, a print journalism major at Cal State Long Beach, said, “It was a little bit more magical to see it behind the scenes.”

Maricela Lopez, a broadcast journalism major at Cal State Long Beach, said she appreciated that she could be there. “Everyone was so nice and open,” Lopez said. “I was excited to meet David Ono because I watch him every day.”