SEJ2008

Freelance Alert

Momentum magazine, the publication of the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment, http://environment.umn.edu/momentum/, is looking for writers on all subjects. Pays $1 a word.

Beat Dinner: Future of Journalism

By Christine Heinrichs

Our beat dinner, Whither Journalism: Emerging Directions, go off to a great start. Thank goodness for Amy Gahran and her iPhone, which got us directions and guided us down the street. The valet helped, too.

The Blues BBQ Co. welcomed us, setting us aside from the rest of the dining area. However, the music was so loud, we could barely communicate even with those closest to us. Kristin Choo distributed folders of the material she had assembled for the event, background on nonprofit groups funding journalistic enterprises and other avenues to economically sound ways to practice our craft.

Opportunities Abound at Freelance Pitch Slam

By Christine Heinrichs

What a great group of editors Sharon Guynup assembled for the Pitch Slam! Getting editors from New Scientist, Popular Science, National Geographic, National Geographic News, an online publication, Orion and Plenty magazines, provided a wide variety of magazines for us all to pitch our ideas to. The deputy director of the International Reporting Project also participated, responding to pitches on behalf of her program sending reporters around the world to pursue their stories, http://www.internationalreportingproject.org/. What a great opportunity that is! If you have projects that need international travel, check it out and apply.

Hearing what other reporters are working on is part of the fun. Chris Woodside pitched a story on the energy choices of politicians -- what kind of cars they drive and how they heat their homes, what other ways they consume energy and how much. None of the editors thought it was right for them, but they all said they sure wanted to read it!

Len Witt's Representative Journalism

If you're attending the Network Lunch breakout session on emerging career options today, one of the people who will be speaking there is Prof. Leonard Witt of Kennsaw State University. He'll be talking about his pilot project in representative journalism, Locally Grown in Northfield, MI -- where reporters work for the community, rather than for a news org.

Len's model is just one example of journalists getting directly involved in reinventing the business side of news and information. If you're a journalist investigating emerging career options, as long as those options involve continuing to do some kind of journalism, you'll also have to carefully consider and take responsibility for the business side.