Pictured above is one of the many editing rooms we saw on the trip.
Blog Post #8: Post- trip Reflection
Today we finished our week long media tour of the city. It was such a great experience! I went into this trip not knowing too much about all of the different careers in media. I am now leaving with a lot more knowledge and direction for my future. We met with so many successful and smart people who gave us invaluable advice about going forward in our education and careers. Personally, I thought that NBC was the coolest place we visited this week. It was inspiring to hear from someone who attended Miami, but also worked her way up at NBC in a very short period of time. It was also comforting to hear that many people moved to New York City without a job and that it's a common thing to do. Not that I hope to move somewhere without a job, but it is nice to know that not everyone graduates with a job or with one they're really happy with. I am especially thankful for Patti and Doug who took the time out of their week to take us around the city! Our class had so much fun running around the city and seeing cool things in our free time, like The Book of Mormon! After this class, I will take away knowledge about pursuing internships and careers, journalism in general, and what many different jobs require of employees. Overall, I am so happy I took this class! I now know so much more going forward and can't wait to put it to use.
Today we finished our week long media tour of the city. It was such a great experience! I went into this trip not knowing too much about all of the different careers in media. I am now leaving with a lot more knowledge and direction for my future. We met with so many successful and smart people who gave us invaluable advice about going forward in our education and careers. Personally, I thought that NBC was the coolest place we visited this week. It was inspiring to hear from someone who attended Miami, but also worked her way up at NBC in a very short period of time. It was also comforting to hear that many people moved to New York City without a job and that it's a common thing to do. Not that I hope to move somewhere without a job, but it is nice to know that not everyone graduates with a job or with one they're really happy with. I am especially thankful for Patti and Doug who took the time out of their week to take us around the city! Our class had so much fun running around the city and seeing cool things in our free time, like The Book of Mormon! After this class, I will take away knowledge about pursuing internships and careers, journalism in general, and what many different jobs require of employees. Overall, I am so happy I took this class! I now know so much more going forward and can't wait to put it to use.
On the final day we stopped by NPR to talk to Ombudsman Elizabeth Jensen.
Blog Post #7: Friday
Friday was our last day of the trip, and everyone was pretty exhausted. We had a very short morning with trip to Shape/ Fitness.com, Family Circle, and NPR.
Shape/ Fitness.com-
Here we met with Amanda Wolfe who is a Miami Alum and majored in Mass Comm and Journalism, with a Political Science minor. She also worked on the Miami Student and was eventually their managing editor. She interned at Parent magazine and got a job there post-grad at parents.com. She worked there for 4-5 months before moving on to Parents Magazine for 4 ½ years as their media and print editor. She was also a senior editor and digital editor at Ladies Home Journal for about 2 years before it folded last year. She then moved on to the digital director at Fitness magazine which soon after bought Shape magazine. Meredith company folded Fitness print but kept both of the websites and the print version of Shape. When asked about competition, Amanda said it would probably be Self and Women's Fitness. She monitors competition on social media, but says it is not a horserace because there is bound to be competition with any website out there. The cool thing about Shape/ Fitness is that they have established relationships with companies like Refinery 29 and Pop Sugar where they swap content. In terms of the difference between Shape and Fitness, it is often hard for even them to tell. Shape has a sexier, lifestyle, fashion and beauty feel and Fitness is more instructional, hardcore, and next-level. Finally, one piece of advice she gave to us is to always be working on our writing skills. This seems to be a common message from almost all of the people we have met with.
Family Circle -
After meeting with Amanda we walked downstairs to the Meredith test kitchen to meet up with Melissa Knific. Melissa has worked at Family Circle for 5 years, but prior to that she attended Miami and also culinary school. Family Circle is about 1/3 of food content, which is what Melissa works to produce. Her and her four person team work to develop recipes, write them, and also edit them. Meredith is one of the few places that still has their own test kitchen, which gives them an advantage. Each issue her team develops about 30 recipes which they have to pitch to editors and the editor in chief who approves it. Family Circle is a monthly publication so she works pretty far ahead of current time. Right now she is developing stories and recipes for Easter. The most interesting thing she told us was that they use average priced ingredients from basic stores, as well as cooking recipes of average appliances that normal families would be using.
NPR-
Our final stop of the day and trip was to National Public Radio. Here we met with Elizabeth Jensen who is the Ombudsman for NPR. She attended the Journalism school at Northwestern and wanted to get into foreign affairs. She studied abroad in Paris and had a lot of other international experience. She first worked at a company called Electronic Media and then moved over to Variety Trade, NY Daily News, WSJ, LA times, and most recently 10 years at the New York Times. She has quite the impressive resume but she says her best move was the Wall Street Journal where she covered business journalism because it allowed her to learn so much about the business world. She is now serving as the Ombudsman at NPR which is a three year contract. She thinks that this position has a time span on it because it allows someone to enter the company with a fresh set of eyes. It is also a hard job because it involves a ton of work and it is often hard to call people out for their mistakes and ethical issues. One of Elizabeth's day to day struggles is dealing with “Contact the Ombudsman”. This is a service that allows NPR listeners to contact her about issues they think need to be addressed by NPR. Even though this is only a three year position, Elizabeth doesn't worry about job security because she is at the point in her career where she needed to take a leap of faith. I thought this was a very interesting person to hear from because she had a very different position in media than a lot of the other people we met with.
Friday was our last day of the trip, and everyone was pretty exhausted. We had a very short morning with trip to Shape/ Fitness.com, Family Circle, and NPR.
Shape/ Fitness.com-
Here we met with Amanda Wolfe who is a Miami Alum and majored in Mass Comm and Journalism, with a Political Science minor. She also worked on the Miami Student and was eventually their managing editor. She interned at Parent magazine and got a job there post-grad at parents.com. She worked there for 4-5 months before moving on to Parents Magazine for 4 ½ years as their media and print editor. She was also a senior editor and digital editor at Ladies Home Journal for about 2 years before it folded last year. She then moved on to the digital director at Fitness magazine which soon after bought Shape magazine. Meredith company folded Fitness print but kept both of the websites and the print version of Shape. When asked about competition, Amanda said it would probably be Self and Women's Fitness. She monitors competition on social media, but says it is not a horserace because there is bound to be competition with any website out there. The cool thing about Shape/ Fitness is that they have established relationships with companies like Refinery 29 and Pop Sugar where they swap content. In terms of the difference between Shape and Fitness, it is often hard for even them to tell. Shape has a sexier, lifestyle, fashion and beauty feel and Fitness is more instructional, hardcore, and next-level. Finally, one piece of advice she gave to us is to always be working on our writing skills. This seems to be a common message from almost all of the people we have met with.
Family Circle -
After meeting with Amanda we walked downstairs to the Meredith test kitchen to meet up with Melissa Knific. Melissa has worked at Family Circle for 5 years, but prior to that she attended Miami and also culinary school. Family Circle is about 1/3 of food content, which is what Melissa works to produce. Her and her four person team work to develop recipes, write them, and also edit them. Meredith is one of the few places that still has their own test kitchen, which gives them an advantage. Each issue her team develops about 30 recipes which they have to pitch to editors and the editor in chief who approves it. Family Circle is a monthly publication so she works pretty far ahead of current time. Right now she is developing stories and recipes for Easter. The most interesting thing she told us was that they use average priced ingredients from basic stores, as well as cooking recipes of average appliances that normal families would be using.
NPR-
Our final stop of the day and trip was to National Public Radio. Here we met with Elizabeth Jensen who is the Ombudsman for NPR. She attended the Journalism school at Northwestern and wanted to get into foreign affairs. She studied abroad in Paris and had a lot of other international experience. She first worked at a company called Electronic Media and then moved over to Variety Trade, NY Daily News, WSJ, LA times, and most recently 10 years at the New York Times. She has quite the impressive resume but she says her best move was the Wall Street Journal where she covered business journalism because it allowed her to learn so much about the business world. She is now serving as the Ombudsman at NPR which is a three year contract. She thinks that this position has a time span on it because it allows someone to enter the company with a fresh set of eyes. It is also a hard job because it involves a ton of work and it is often hard to call people out for their mistakes and ethical issues. One of Elizabeth's day to day struggles is dealing with “Contact the Ombudsman”. This is a service that allows NPR listeners to contact her about issues they think need to be addressed by NPR. Even though this is only a three year position, Elizabeth doesn't worry about job security because she is at the point in her career where she needed to take a leap of faith. I thought this was a very interesting person to hear from because she had a very different position in media than a lot of the other people we met with.
Above is me and Lily Quenneville joking around at the Buzzfeed offices.
Blog Post #6: Thursday
Thursday was the busiest day of the trip thus far. We were supposed to start our day off with Al Jazierra which we learned was shutting down in April. This gave us a later start in the day and we were off to Thomson Reuters, Buzzfeed, Gimlet Media, Vice, and the Book of Mormon!
Thomson Reuters-
Our first stop of the day was to Thomson Reuters to see Andrew Seaman. Andrew is a senior medical journalist who is from Scranton, Pennsylvania. He attended college in Pennsylvania and then moved to NYC to go to grad school at Columbia. After this he moved to Washington D.C. and was writing about the Affordable Care Act. During this time he decided he didn't like writing about politics and came to NYC for science journalism. In addition to his work at Thomson Reuters, he is also the chair of ethics at the Society of Professional Journalism. He is not on the national board, but he educates journalists about the Code of Ethics and has worked to update them. Thomson Reuters is the worlds largest news organization and is based in Europe. Andrew believes their biggest competitors are Bloomberg, the AP for Medicine. His one piece of advice for journalists was to never “beat the wire”, which means if you have a piece of information that hasn't broke yet you need to send it to your editor first. The editor will then send it out on the wire for all of their paying clients. Andrew writes for a general audience and most recently posted a story about the Sean Penn- El Chapo story and it's ethical conflicts. He thinks the biggest mistake made by Penn was giving the source the power over the final approval. I thought this was a very interesting visit, especially because Andrew had no background in the medical field and now has made a career out of it.
Buzzfeed-
Our second stop of the day was to Buzzfeed. I was most excited for this visit because I am a huge Buzzfeed fan and I have heard great things about the company. We entered the offices and I was immediately impressed, they were so cool! People were riding around on hover boards, there was food everywhere, and pictures were plastered all over the walls. You could immediately tell that it was a very fun and chill environment to work in. We met with 3 Miami Alums: Elaina Wahl, Shannon Rosenberg, and Sarah Karlin. They all had very different jobs and personalities, but fit into Buzzfeed perfectly. Elaina was a Mass. Comm and Zoology major who has a major passion for the conservation of animals. Shannon was a journalism and psychology major who went to Newhouse at Syracuse for graduate school. She landed her first job from a grad school capstone internship at Prevention magazine. From there she went to Time Inc. and now is a life section editor for Buzzfeed. They talked about their everyday jobs and how their fun work environment allows them to produce good work, feel better, and have no pressure from the staff. Overall, Buzzfeed was amazing. You can tell that the people who work there really love what they do, and that is the type of environment I would love to work in.
Gimlet Media-
Our third stop was Gimlet Media, which was a ways away in Brooklyn. We were meeting with Alex Blumberg who is the co-founder. This was one of my assigned people, so I had done a lot of research prior. They had just moved offices and so we met in the first floor common area, which was very urban and hipster. There was definitely a startup feel. I started off by asking a question I was really interested in: how do you engage listeners differently through audio than through TV? Alex talked about how audio allows you to tell a story, especially about the past, that the listeners hears and then creates a person in their mind. Audio also raises a question and is constantly working on answering that question. The issue with TV is that it is awful for reenactment, and that is why they have trouble talking about things in the past. He also talked about how he selects topics for his shows that he thinks will appeal to the reader. With his show Startup he chose the company Dating Ring because he thought that the people who worked for the company were emotionally present, and were very honest about what they were going through. As for the company itself, people are interested and invested in dating companies, so that was also a factor. Gimlet has raised a ton of money for the company from advertisers ($1.5 million) and investors ($6 million) since it began less than two years ago. He came into contact with his co-founder Matt from a mutual friend and their skill sets complemented each other. Matt was better at the business side, and Alex with producing radio. As for the future, Alex sees podcasts rising and hopes that Gimlet will be the HBO of podcasts.
Vice Media-
Our last visit was to Vice Media, also in Brooklyn, but much further away from Gimlet. We all rushed in late and met with Taylor Dolven who is a researcher for VICE Media, more specifically for their TV show VICE. Taylor is a Miami Grad (2012) who started off her career in Argentina. She had studied Spanish in college but didn't become fluent until she worked at an English newspaper in Argentina. She says being fluent in another language has helped her immensely when looking for jobs. This was inspiring to me because I am a spanish minor at Miami as well. It also got me thinking that I need to go somewhere to immerse myself in the culture in order to learn the language better. When she came back to the US, she said NYC had a much more competitive media atmosphere. Her job is to do research for the TV show VICE which premieres on HBO. Her boss then came in and talked to us and he has been a television executive for 4 years at VICE. He gave the class some great advice about how the millennials need to have a niche and own it. That way we are specialized and doing something that we are good at but also love. Taylor then gave us a tour of the offices which were enormous. There were many parts of the company and we saw the TV offices she works in where people are researching and editing for the TV show. Overall, I thought VICE was a really interesting and cool company, however there was definitely a more competitive, serious vibe than Buzzfeed.
Book of Mormon-
After our visit with Vice Media, we hurried back over to Midtown for an Italian dinner. We quickly ate and then we were on our way to the Book of Mormon! I was very excited to see this show because I have heard nothing but amazing things about it. The show definitely exceeded my expectations, it was hysterical. It followed a group of Mormon men who were entering adulthood, and their mission was to spread the Mormon word for 2 years in an assigned location. When the lead Mormon was sent to Uganda with his least favorite classmate, chaos starts to occur. The show kept me laughing the entire time, even after an exhausting day.
Thursday was the busiest day of the trip thus far. We were supposed to start our day off with Al Jazierra which we learned was shutting down in April. This gave us a later start in the day and we were off to Thomson Reuters, Buzzfeed, Gimlet Media, Vice, and the Book of Mormon!
Thomson Reuters-
Our first stop of the day was to Thomson Reuters to see Andrew Seaman. Andrew is a senior medical journalist who is from Scranton, Pennsylvania. He attended college in Pennsylvania and then moved to NYC to go to grad school at Columbia. After this he moved to Washington D.C. and was writing about the Affordable Care Act. During this time he decided he didn't like writing about politics and came to NYC for science journalism. In addition to his work at Thomson Reuters, he is also the chair of ethics at the Society of Professional Journalism. He is not on the national board, but he educates journalists about the Code of Ethics and has worked to update them. Thomson Reuters is the worlds largest news organization and is based in Europe. Andrew believes their biggest competitors are Bloomberg, the AP for Medicine. His one piece of advice for journalists was to never “beat the wire”, which means if you have a piece of information that hasn't broke yet you need to send it to your editor first. The editor will then send it out on the wire for all of their paying clients. Andrew writes for a general audience and most recently posted a story about the Sean Penn- El Chapo story and it's ethical conflicts. He thinks the biggest mistake made by Penn was giving the source the power over the final approval. I thought this was a very interesting visit, especially because Andrew had no background in the medical field and now has made a career out of it.
Buzzfeed-
Our second stop of the day was to Buzzfeed. I was most excited for this visit because I am a huge Buzzfeed fan and I have heard great things about the company. We entered the offices and I was immediately impressed, they were so cool! People were riding around on hover boards, there was food everywhere, and pictures were plastered all over the walls. You could immediately tell that it was a very fun and chill environment to work in. We met with 3 Miami Alums: Elaina Wahl, Shannon Rosenberg, and Sarah Karlin. They all had very different jobs and personalities, but fit into Buzzfeed perfectly. Elaina was a Mass. Comm and Zoology major who has a major passion for the conservation of animals. Shannon was a journalism and psychology major who went to Newhouse at Syracuse for graduate school. She landed her first job from a grad school capstone internship at Prevention magazine. From there she went to Time Inc. and now is a life section editor for Buzzfeed. They talked about their everyday jobs and how their fun work environment allows them to produce good work, feel better, and have no pressure from the staff. Overall, Buzzfeed was amazing. You can tell that the people who work there really love what they do, and that is the type of environment I would love to work in.
Gimlet Media-
Our third stop was Gimlet Media, which was a ways away in Brooklyn. We were meeting with Alex Blumberg who is the co-founder. This was one of my assigned people, so I had done a lot of research prior. They had just moved offices and so we met in the first floor common area, which was very urban and hipster. There was definitely a startup feel. I started off by asking a question I was really interested in: how do you engage listeners differently through audio than through TV? Alex talked about how audio allows you to tell a story, especially about the past, that the listeners hears and then creates a person in their mind. Audio also raises a question and is constantly working on answering that question. The issue with TV is that it is awful for reenactment, and that is why they have trouble talking about things in the past. He also talked about how he selects topics for his shows that he thinks will appeal to the reader. With his show Startup he chose the company Dating Ring because he thought that the people who worked for the company were emotionally present, and were very honest about what they were going through. As for the company itself, people are interested and invested in dating companies, so that was also a factor. Gimlet has raised a ton of money for the company from advertisers ($1.5 million) and investors ($6 million) since it began less than two years ago. He came into contact with his co-founder Matt from a mutual friend and their skill sets complemented each other. Matt was better at the business side, and Alex with producing radio. As for the future, Alex sees podcasts rising and hopes that Gimlet will be the HBO of podcasts.
Vice Media-
Our last visit was to Vice Media, also in Brooklyn, but much further away from Gimlet. We all rushed in late and met with Taylor Dolven who is a researcher for VICE Media, more specifically for their TV show VICE. Taylor is a Miami Grad (2012) who started off her career in Argentina. She had studied Spanish in college but didn't become fluent until she worked at an English newspaper in Argentina. She says being fluent in another language has helped her immensely when looking for jobs. This was inspiring to me because I am a spanish minor at Miami as well. It also got me thinking that I need to go somewhere to immerse myself in the culture in order to learn the language better. When she came back to the US, she said NYC had a much more competitive media atmosphere. Her job is to do research for the TV show VICE which premieres on HBO. Her boss then came in and talked to us and he has been a television executive for 4 years at VICE. He gave the class some great advice about how the millennials need to have a niche and own it. That way we are specialized and doing something that we are good at but also love. Taylor then gave us a tour of the offices which were enormous. There were many parts of the company and we saw the TV offices she works in where people are researching and editing for the TV show. Overall, I thought VICE was a really interesting and cool company, however there was definitely a more competitive, serious vibe than Buzzfeed.
Book of Mormon-
After our visit with Vice Media, we hurried back over to Midtown for an Italian dinner. We quickly ate and then we were on our way to the Book of Mormon! I was very excited to see this show because I have heard nothing but amazing things about it. The show definitely exceeded my expectations, it was hysterical. It followed a group of Mormon men who were entering adulthood, and their mission was to spread the Mormon word for 2 years in an assigned location. When the lead Mormon was sent to Uganda with his least favorite classmate, chaos starts to occur. The show kept me laughing the entire time, even after an exhausting day.
Miami students with Gerri Willis at the Fox News offices.
Blog 5: Wednesday
Today was our third day of appointments, and we were all a little worn out.
Departures
Our first stop was to see MU alum Jessica Flint at Departures magazine. Departures is a travel and lifestyle luxury magazine that is delivered to 1.2 million American Express platinum members and for black card members, they receive Centurian magazine. After graduating from Miami, Jessica started working for Vanity Fair and then moved over to Bloomberg/Businessweek. She has been at Departures for 2 ½ years as an editor. The magazine is published bi-monthly, one home edition in October, and then Centurian 2x a year. As an editor, Jessica has to travel all over the world for 8-18 days on end. One struggle she pointed out about her job is that she has to be ready to travel anywhere in the world whenever they need her to. This has restricted her planning of her personal life. The magazine picks their destinations based on word of mouth and readers interest. Departures also has an niche audience which are the cardmembers that receive the magazine who are “a part of the club”. The magazine tells the audience about the lifestyle they should be living. Their main competitors would be Condé Nast travel, Travel and Leisure, and the WSJ magazine. However, Jessica says she doesn't fear for competition because they have very loyal readers. Overall, I thought this was a very interesting perspective about an editor for a company that is very exclusive. I had never heard about Departures before this class, and I think the idea is really entertaining.
Fox News
After Departures we took the subway over to the Fox News studio. We first met with Bill Hemmer's assistant Kate, who gave us a tour of the studio and the editing rooms. After the tour, she took us into Bill and Martha's studio where they film America's Newsroom. We got to see them film the last 10 minutes of the show and then Bill showed us the studio and his computer behind the desk. This computer shows him all of the breaking news and gives him access to what he's supposed to be reporting on, while he's filming live. Finally, Bill answered questions and told us how much travel influenced his life and his work. I think it was so amazing how he backpacked around the world for an entire year after working for 2 years. This allowed him to learn so much about the world, and he always has these experiences to relate to news stories.
Our second guest at Fox was Gerri Willis, another MU alum along with Bill. Gerri is a finance reporter who started off in Ohio and moved around to Virginia and then to NYC to attend Columbia. Her first job was at Smart Money Magazine, then to CNN, and finally to Fox. She had a show called the Willis Report which was a consumer based report and Willis said was so much fun to film and be a part of. She starts off her day by reading up on the news from her favorite sources like Fox, NYT, WSJ, and the NY post. She is hoping to start a show soon about student debt and how people should be handling their finances in situations like this.
Hearst Media
At Hearst Media we met with Bridget Clegg, our last guest of the day, and another Miami Alum. Bridget started off by telling us about her education at Miami, moving to NYC post grad to Nanny, and her work with DIY and crafts. Her first job was as an assistant for Katie Brown who was a Martha Stewart- like person. She worked there for a little over a year and thought it was a great learning experience. She moved on to The Knot where she was a photo editor for a few years. After her boss left The Knot, she recruited Bridget to come to Hearst with her. Bridget works as a photo editor at Hearst's 'BestProducts.com' which is a new site. This site is similar to consumer reports and has many different reviewed products and categories. There's an editor for each category such as beauty, cars, and parenting. The editors write two stories a day and are constantly reviewing the best products for their category. She also brought in her editor for the Parent section who talked about her previous experience and work as a parent and writing about the best products as one. This visit was very interesting because we saw how new bestProducts.com was and it felt very similar to a start-up.
Today was our third day of appointments, and we were all a little worn out.
Departures
Our first stop was to see MU alum Jessica Flint at Departures magazine. Departures is a travel and lifestyle luxury magazine that is delivered to 1.2 million American Express platinum members and for black card members, they receive Centurian magazine. After graduating from Miami, Jessica started working for Vanity Fair and then moved over to Bloomberg/Businessweek. She has been at Departures for 2 ½ years as an editor. The magazine is published bi-monthly, one home edition in October, and then Centurian 2x a year. As an editor, Jessica has to travel all over the world for 8-18 days on end. One struggle she pointed out about her job is that she has to be ready to travel anywhere in the world whenever they need her to. This has restricted her planning of her personal life. The magazine picks their destinations based on word of mouth and readers interest. Departures also has an niche audience which are the cardmembers that receive the magazine who are “a part of the club”. The magazine tells the audience about the lifestyle they should be living. Their main competitors would be Condé Nast travel, Travel and Leisure, and the WSJ magazine. However, Jessica says she doesn't fear for competition because they have very loyal readers. Overall, I thought this was a very interesting perspective about an editor for a company that is very exclusive. I had never heard about Departures before this class, and I think the idea is really entertaining.
Fox News
After Departures we took the subway over to the Fox News studio. We first met with Bill Hemmer's assistant Kate, who gave us a tour of the studio and the editing rooms. After the tour, she took us into Bill and Martha's studio where they film America's Newsroom. We got to see them film the last 10 minutes of the show and then Bill showed us the studio and his computer behind the desk. This computer shows him all of the breaking news and gives him access to what he's supposed to be reporting on, while he's filming live. Finally, Bill answered questions and told us how much travel influenced his life and his work. I think it was so amazing how he backpacked around the world for an entire year after working for 2 years. This allowed him to learn so much about the world, and he always has these experiences to relate to news stories.
Our second guest at Fox was Gerri Willis, another MU alum along with Bill. Gerri is a finance reporter who started off in Ohio and moved around to Virginia and then to NYC to attend Columbia. Her first job was at Smart Money Magazine, then to CNN, and finally to Fox. She had a show called the Willis Report which was a consumer based report and Willis said was so much fun to film and be a part of. She starts off her day by reading up on the news from her favorite sources like Fox, NYT, WSJ, and the NY post. She is hoping to start a show soon about student debt and how people should be handling their finances in situations like this.
Hearst Media
At Hearst Media we met with Bridget Clegg, our last guest of the day, and another Miami Alum. Bridget started off by telling us about her education at Miami, moving to NYC post grad to Nanny, and her work with DIY and crafts. Her first job was as an assistant for Katie Brown who was a Martha Stewart- like person. She worked there for a little over a year and thought it was a great learning experience. She moved on to The Knot where she was a photo editor for a few years. After her boss left The Knot, she recruited Bridget to come to Hearst with her. Bridget works as a photo editor at Hearst's 'BestProducts.com' which is a new site. This site is similar to consumer reports and has many different reviewed products and categories. There's an editor for each category such as beauty, cars, and parenting. The editors write two stories a day and are constantly reviewing the best products for their category. She also brought in her editor for the Parent section who talked about her previous experience and work as a parent and writing about the best products as one. This visit was very interesting because we saw how new bestProducts.com was and it felt very similar to a start-up.
Here we are posing with Larry Wilmore, after the taping of his show.
Blog 4: Tuesday
Tuesday was our second day, and it was jam packed. We met with Bloomberg, WABC, ABC, Bill Keller, and saw a taping of The Night Show with Larry Wilmore.
Bloomberg
Here we met with Andy Martin who is an investigative reporter for Bloomberg, and also a Miami alum. He told us about his career in journalism and about the history of Bloomberg. He works on Businessweek magazine and investigates topics he thinks are interesting. One of his newest ideas for a story is about the validity of third party certification, which I think is very interesting. The advice he gave us was to keep writing as much as you can even though you may have bad editors. He acredits a lot of his knowledge to the good and smart people he worked with at the New York Times and Chicago Tribune.
Andy then brought in two women he thought would be good for us to meet. The first was Laura Keller who is a stress debt writer, and attended USC and Colombia University. She gave us some good advice about getting jobs after internships. When she was in college she interned at Bloomberg, but was not hired by them post- grad. Because of this, she went off and got specialized in a certain area to create her niche. This niche allowed her to serve a specific purpose and know exactly what she is talking about. The other woman was Kerry Geiger who covers people who are under investigation, such as hacking scandals and FIFA. She talked to us about breaking news and all that must be done before you break it. One great piece of advice she gave us was “being fair is just as important as being accurate”.
WABC
Our second stop was WABC-7 to see Saundra Thomas. I was excited for this stop because I was the lead student who had researched the guest. Saundra brought in Camille Edwards who is a Michigan graduate and the news director at WABC. She talked to us for a large amount of time about all that her job entails and how much work she puts in. Her job sounded very stressful, because she is in charge of 45 hours of news a week and around 170 people who work for her. Her weakness was the business aspect of her job, so she has a finance team that helps her on that end. Then NJ Burkett came in and talked to us a little bit about his 25+ years of experience as a reporter, and how important it is to communicate well and have the curiosity needed to keep investigating. Saundra then took us on a brief tour of the studios and brought us over to the ABC headquarters for our meeting there. I didn't get to talk to Saundra much or hear about what she does, which was a little disappointing.
ABC
Over at ABC we met with Jane Frye, another MU alum who works in the social media department of The View. Post grad she worked at the Daily Beast, Hearst Media, and then moved over to ABC. Her role at ABC requires her to pull comments from Twitter and post them on the air during The View. The cast members then answer those questions and it's a good way to engage the audience. This also shows the heavy push on digital media and how it can connect an audience to who they are watching. The helpful advice Jane gave us was to keep working things at every angle, and if someone you contact doesn't contact you back, keep trying until they answer.
The Marshall Project:
Our final booking of the day was with Bill Keller who was the former executive editor at the New York Times for 30 years before coming over to The Marshall Project. He touched on what Obama would possibly address in his State of the Union that night, which he thought would be sentencing reform. Since Obama is on his way out, Keller thinks there isn't much else he's going to accomplish in this time. The sentencing bill that could be passed would mostly affect drug crimes. Then he got into his work on The Marshall Project. The difference between this and the NYT is mainly the size. There are about 25 people on staff at The Marshall Project compared to the 1250 people he oversaw at the New York Times. There is a more intimate atmosphere at The Marshall Project which allows him to talk to all of his staff members. The one downfall is that they are constantly fundraising to keep TMP afloat, whereas the NYT was always very financially secure. TMP is focused on the criminal justice system which Bill Keller feels very strongly about. He briefly touched on the rape story ran by TMP that ran at the end of the year that started with the Rolling Stones article. We read this article for class and I thought it was absolutely fascinating.
The Late Show with Larry Wilmore
To finish off our day half of the class went to see the taping of The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore. We waited outside to be seated for around 1 ½- 2 hours outside and in a waiting room. When we finally got seated we only waited for about 15 minutes. The warm up comic came out after and got everyone pumped up for Larry. Larry then came out and took a few of our questions. The show then began taping and went pretty smoothly, except for one re-shoot. Larry was very funny and touched on topics such as the water crisis in Flint Michigan, and the new hit show Making of a Murderer. He brought on a few quests and correspondents who discussed these topics with him. Once it was over with, Larry was super nice and took a picture with all of us.
Tuesday was our second day, and it was jam packed. We met with Bloomberg, WABC, ABC, Bill Keller, and saw a taping of The Night Show with Larry Wilmore.
Bloomberg
Here we met with Andy Martin who is an investigative reporter for Bloomberg, and also a Miami alum. He told us about his career in journalism and about the history of Bloomberg. He works on Businessweek magazine and investigates topics he thinks are interesting. One of his newest ideas for a story is about the validity of third party certification, which I think is very interesting. The advice he gave us was to keep writing as much as you can even though you may have bad editors. He acredits a lot of his knowledge to the good and smart people he worked with at the New York Times and Chicago Tribune.
Andy then brought in two women he thought would be good for us to meet. The first was Laura Keller who is a stress debt writer, and attended USC and Colombia University. She gave us some good advice about getting jobs after internships. When she was in college she interned at Bloomberg, but was not hired by them post- grad. Because of this, she went off and got specialized in a certain area to create her niche. This niche allowed her to serve a specific purpose and know exactly what she is talking about. The other woman was Kerry Geiger who covers people who are under investigation, such as hacking scandals and FIFA. She talked to us about breaking news and all that must be done before you break it. One great piece of advice she gave us was “being fair is just as important as being accurate”.
WABC
Our second stop was WABC-7 to see Saundra Thomas. I was excited for this stop because I was the lead student who had researched the guest. Saundra brought in Camille Edwards who is a Michigan graduate and the news director at WABC. She talked to us for a large amount of time about all that her job entails and how much work she puts in. Her job sounded very stressful, because she is in charge of 45 hours of news a week and around 170 people who work for her. Her weakness was the business aspect of her job, so she has a finance team that helps her on that end. Then NJ Burkett came in and talked to us a little bit about his 25+ years of experience as a reporter, and how important it is to communicate well and have the curiosity needed to keep investigating. Saundra then took us on a brief tour of the studios and brought us over to the ABC headquarters for our meeting there. I didn't get to talk to Saundra much or hear about what she does, which was a little disappointing.
ABC
Over at ABC we met with Jane Frye, another MU alum who works in the social media department of The View. Post grad she worked at the Daily Beast, Hearst Media, and then moved over to ABC. Her role at ABC requires her to pull comments from Twitter and post them on the air during The View. The cast members then answer those questions and it's a good way to engage the audience. This also shows the heavy push on digital media and how it can connect an audience to who they are watching. The helpful advice Jane gave us was to keep working things at every angle, and if someone you contact doesn't contact you back, keep trying until they answer.
The Marshall Project:
Our final booking of the day was with Bill Keller who was the former executive editor at the New York Times for 30 years before coming over to The Marshall Project. He touched on what Obama would possibly address in his State of the Union that night, which he thought would be sentencing reform. Since Obama is on his way out, Keller thinks there isn't much else he's going to accomplish in this time. The sentencing bill that could be passed would mostly affect drug crimes. Then he got into his work on The Marshall Project. The difference between this and the NYT is mainly the size. There are about 25 people on staff at The Marshall Project compared to the 1250 people he oversaw at the New York Times. There is a more intimate atmosphere at The Marshall Project which allows him to talk to all of his staff members. The one downfall is that they are constantly fundraising to keep TMP afloat, whereas the NYT was always very financially secure. TMP is focused on the criminal justice system which Bill Keller feels very strongly about. He briefly touched on the rape story ran by TMP that ran at the end of the year that started with the Rolling Stones article. We read this article for class and I thought it was absolutely fascinating.
The Late Show with Larry Wilmore
To finish off our day half of the class went to see the taping of The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore. We waited outside to be seated for around 1 ½- 2 hours outside and in a waiting room. When we finally got seated we only waited for about 15 minutes. The warm up comic came out after and got everyone pumped up for Larry. Larry then came out and took a few of our questions. The show then began taping and went pretty smoothly, except for one re-shoot. Larry was very funny and touched on topics such as the water crisis in Flint Michigan, and the new hit show Making of a Murderer. He brought on a few quests and correspondents who discussed these topics with him. Once it was over with, Larry was super nice and took a picture with all of us.
Here are some students waiting for The Daily Show with Trevor Noah to start taping!
Post 3: Monday
Monday morning was the first big day of bookings in the city. The class met in the lobby at 8:45 am to head over to our first stop: The New York Times. We were meeting with two different people here: Jenna Pirog and Gail Collins. The walk was only a few blocks and the office lobby was really cool. They had all these small screens that showed articles being typed for print.
New York Times
Jenna Pirog was our first guest and she is a producer of the New York Times first virtual reality film called the Displaced. Her specific job was a photo editor/ virtual reality editor. She answered many questions and also told us how the NYT works to create virtual reality films and where they get their ideas from. They came up with the idea for the Displaced because they partnered with Google and knew they were going to get a lot of marketing and PR for this. This gave them the idea to use it for the better by bringing attention to an important issue like the refugee crisis.
Next we met with Gail Collins in the same room. Gail has been a columnist at the New York Times for 7 years and she covers mostly political matters, such as the upcoming presidential election. One important question that was asked was “how do you keep a fresh approach to writing?” Gail responded by telling us we all need to develop our own voice because of how much media there is today. You can develop your own voice by writing, writing, and writing some more.
NBC
We met with a page Jordan and also our guest, Daniella Pierre-Bravo. Jordan had just graduated from college and was a part of the Page program where he will rotate around NBC for 12 months, working in different departments. He took us around the studio because Daniella was busy. He showed us things such as the SNL stage, sound rooms, editing rooms, and also where Jimmy Fallon tapes his shows. Jordan also told us about his job as a Page and all that it entails. It sounds like such a cool opportunity, but it is definitely extremely difficult to land. Daniella then took us to see MSNBC and where Morning Joe films every morning. Towards the end of the tour we went into a conference room and had the chance to talk to Daniella about her education at Miami and how she got to such a high position in such a little amount of time. She told us about her day to day tasks that involve booking for the Morning Joe Show, talent, and also for “Know Your Value” with Mika. This was probably my favorite stop this day because of the studio tour. We didn't know we were going to get this, and it was a great surprise. I love Saturday Night Live, and being able to go in and see where it is filmed was surreal.
Yahoo!
Here we met Cassie Carothers who is the managing editor at Yahoo! Foods. Carothers was a Miami Alum who has worked at many places including Fox News, US Weekly, NY Post, and Martha Stewart. She addressed the negativity that Yahoo has recently received from the press and said that the only person who can fix it is the CEO. She also introduced us to Gillie who was the director of social media for Yahoo foods, and had just recently graduated college. She told us how she got the job, and all the internship experience she had prior. She also had a really awesome food Instagram account.
The Daily Show with Trevor Noah
Our final stop for the day the a taping of The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. We arrived very early and waited in the VIP line. When we were finally let in, we were seated in the front row! The wait was almost an hour until the warm up comic came on, but he was hysterical. Then finally, Trevor Noah came on and took a few questions. He told us about what he missed about South Africa and taking over the job from Jon Stewart. When the show started Trevor had many hilarious segments including talking about the capture of “El Chapo”. His special guest was Colin Quinn who has a new online show called Cop Show. The taping was pretty quick and we were then ushered out of the studio. It was really cool to see how efficiently they got the taping done, and how soon it would air!
Monday morning was the first big day of bookings in the city. The class met in the lobby at 8:45 am to head over to our first stop: The New York Times. We were meeting with two different people here: Jenna Pirog and Gail Collins. The walk was only a few blocks and the office lobby was really cool. They had all these small screens that showed articles being typed for print.
New York Times
Jenna Pirog was our first guest and she is a producer of the New York Times first virtual reality film called the Displaced. Her specific job was a photo editor/ virtual reality editor. She answered many questions and also told us how the NYT works to create virtual reality films and where they get their ideas from. They came up with the idea for the Displaced because they partnered with Google and knew they were going to get a lot of marketing and PR for this. This gave them the idea to use it for the better by bringing attention to an important issue like the refugee crisis.
Next we met with Gail Collins in the same room. Gail has been a columnist at the New York Times for 7 years and she covers mostly political matters, such as the upcoming presidential election. One important question that was asked was “how do you keep a fresh approach to writing?” Gail responded by telling us we all need to develop our own voice because of how much media there is today. You can develop your own voice by writing, writing, and writing some more.
NBC
We met with a page Jordan and also our guest, Daniella Pierre-Bravo. Jordan had just graduated from college and was a part of the Page program where he will rotate around NBC for 12 months, working in different departments. He took us around the studio because Daniella was busy. He showed us things such as the SNL stage, sound rooms, editing rooms, and also where Jimmy Fallon tapes his shows. Jordan also told us about his job as a Page and all that it entails. It sounds like such a cool opportunity, but it is definitely extremely difficult to land. Daniella then took us to see MSNBC and where Morning Joe films every morning. Towards the end of the tour we went into a conference room and had the chance to talk to Daniella about her education at Miami and how she got to such a high position in such a little amount of time. She told us about her day to day tasks that involve booking for the Morning Joe Show, talent, and also for “Know Your Value” with Mika. This was probably my favorite stop this day because of the studio tour. We didn't know we were going to get this, and it was a great surprise. I love Saturday Night Live, and being able to go in and see where it is filmed was surreal.
Yahoo!
Here we met Cassie Carothers who is the managing editor at Yahoo! Foods. Carothers was a Miami Alum who has worked at many places including Fox News, US Weekly, NY Post, and Martha Stewart. She addressed the negativity that Yahoo has recently received from the press and said that the only person who can fix it is the CEO. She also introduced us to Gillie who was the director of social media for Yahoo foods, and had just recently graduated college. She told us how she got the job, and all the internship experience she had prior. She also had a really awesome food Instagram account.
The Daily Show with Trevor Noah
Our final stop for the day the a taping of The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. We arrived very early and waited in the VIP line. When we were finally let in, we were seated in the front row! The wait was almost an hour until the warm up comic came on, but he was hysterical. Then finally, Trevor Noah came on and took a few questions. He told us about what he missed about South Africa and taking over the job from Jon Stewart. When the show started Trevor had many hilarious segments including talking about the capture of “El Chapo”. His special guest was Colin Quinn who has a new online show called Cop Show. The taping was pretty quick and we were then ushered out of the studio. It was really cool to see how efficiently they got the taping done, and how soon it would air!
Above are the monitors that display tons of information in the lobby of the NYT.
Post 2: Sunday
Today is the first day of the trip and I took the train in from New Jersey. I spent the weekend at a friends house that was a 45 minute ride away. Around 2 pm I arrived at the hotel and met up with my roommate Lily. We knew each other before the trip, but I did not know any of the others girls. We were both abroad this semester so we had been able to attend any of the pre-trip meetings. Around 2:45 we all gathered in the lobby to meet each other and head to the 9/11 museum. Some people had flight delays and were going to meet us at dinner. We all headed to the subway and purchased our subway cards that would be our form of transportation for the next week. After we had all gotten our cards, some difficulties occurred. We took one subway line a few stops and got off looking to transfer to a different line. We waited for around an hour for the subway to take us to the World Trade Center, but it wasn't showing up.
After waiting and waiting, we finally realized the trains were switched around and we were supposed to be downstairs waiting for a different line. We were all a little frustrated because we had already missed our time for the museum. We all headed back to the hotel to relax before our 7 pm dinner. I was pretty disappointed because I have heard so many good things about the museum, and was really looking forward to seeing it. At 6:45 pm we all met again in the lobby to walk to dinner at HB Burgers. We had a preordered menu at the restaurant and all got to know each other and talk about our excitement/ nervousness about the trip. After dinner we all headed back to the hotel and watched the Golden Globes before bed. We headed to bed early because we knew we had a long day ahead of us!
Pictured above is the skyline from the New York Times offices.
Blog Post #1: Coming to New York
On Friday I will fly to New York City for the start of my New York Media class. I have many apprehensions about this experience, mostly because i've never done something like this before! However, I am extremely excited because we are going to see so many different types of media outlets, and meet many influential people. I think that this trip will help me to get an idea of what I want to pursue in the media world. Some days I think about doing PR for a big company, and other days I think I would like to work as a booking agent for a media company. Actually seeing these jobs in action will definitely give me a better idea of what they require and if I think I may want to do that. New York City has so much to offer and the opportunities are endless. This is where my apprehension sets in. If I got offered an internship or job in a place such as NYC, I would have to get up and move to a different city than Chicago. That may seem silly but I always had a vision of staying there forever. Now I know that if I get offered an opportunity to do something I may love, I should take it while I can. As a Junior, there is a lot of pressure for internships and knowing what I want to do when I graduate. I have many ideas, but I am hoping this class and trip will help guide me into the direction I need to be going.
On Friday I will fly to New York City for the start of my New York Media class. I have many apprehensions about this experience, mostly because i've never done something like this before! However, I am extremely excited because we are going to see so many different types of media outlets, and meet many influential people. I think that this trip will help me to get an idea of what I want to pursue in the media world. Some days I think about doing PR for a big company, and other days I think I would like to work as a booking agent for a media company. Actually seeing these jobs in action will definitely give me a better idea of what they require and if I think I may want to do that. New York City has so much to offer and the opportunities are endless. This is where my apprehension sets in. If I got offered an internship or job in a place such as NYC, I would have to get up and move to a different city than Chicago. That may seem silly but I always had a vision of staying there forever. Now I know that if I get offered an opportunity to do something I may love, I should take it while I can. As a Junior, there is a lot of pressure for internships and knowing what I want to do when I graduate. I have many ideas, but I am hoping this class and trip will help guide me into the direction I need to be going.