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 Insight News: University of Memphis Department of Journalism

Job Search Preparation

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Plan Ahead - RTNDA recommends you take these steps well before it's time to graduation to prepare yourself for graduation

Standing Out - Media Job Pod offers great advice through video interviews with news directors and other managers about what they are looking for in a hire. Watch ALL of these.  Valuable stuff. 

Resume Example - This is a good example of a standard, traditional resume.  You should include it in your online portfolio.  Preferably in a format that can downloaded and/or printed.  

Recent Online Portfolios/UofM Students - See Vivian Haynes ('12); Ashli Blow ('12); Brennan Somers ('11); Daniel Wilkerson ('11); Sarah Bleau ('10)


TV Station Information

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DMA listings.  - Designated Market Area.  This is a comprehensive list of the 210 TV markets.  It also shows if the size is rising or falling based on households.  In 2010, Memphis is market 50 - down two market sizes from last year.  This is due to decreasing population. When I was reporter in 1994, Memphis was DMA 42. 

Nielsen Sweeps Dates - These are the exact dates for Nielsen sweeps.  Good to know when applying for jobs.  Sweeps months or the weeks preceding may be a difficult time to get answers from news directors or schedule interviews. 

Station contact and employer info.  This searchable site allows you to quickly get contact and mailing info.  The subscription to TVjobs.com allows more detailed info, including job info.  You can get all of this info by searcing google and going to station websites (including employment) but this is all in one place.)

Top Local TV station owners. This is an excellent interactive site that tells you about top ownership groups for local TV. You can find out about ownership by looking at the very bottom of a TV station website. 

Ownership Revenue - want to know how financially healthy a prospective TV station is?  Check out the annual State of the Media report.  This section outlines biggest losers and winners in terms of revenue. 

TV Job Websites

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TV jobs.com - there are some free features here, but this is a paid site where you can post your resume online.  Some of our students have had luck with this site - so it seems to be worth the money.  Subscription will also allow you to search station ownership. For $30/year - worth it.   

Journalismjobs.com - free website to search job openings, job search strategies, and industry news

RTNDA Salary Survey - 2010 salary survey.  Pay close attention to entry leve (150 DMA +) averages.

To M.A. or not?

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Good list of graduate journalism schools that offer practical experience.  Also has nice list of journalism books to read. 

Sites about TV News and How to Improve Reporting

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TVrundown.com - issues and events involving TV news.

Journalism.org - general journalism site. Home of the annual State of the Media report. 

Student tools for reporting. - articles from Committtee for Concerned Journalists about how to be a better student reporter. 

Journalism Toolbox - This site offers advice on how to improve your reporting as well as other resources - such as job sites.

Newslab.org - Great advice and tips site.

broadcasting&cable magazine.  - television industry publication.



Pronounciation Guide

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Voice of America - hear how to pronounce names, places, people.

Need File Footage?

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newsmarket - resource for free and legal video, stills and soundbites.

 Add a Twitter Badge to Weebly

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4.9. Add a Twitter Badge Weebly has a built-in element for adding a Twitter badge to your blog sidebar, but you may want to have a Twitter badge on other pages as well. There are many Twitter badges available on the web and most of them can be added to your Weebly site using a Custom HTML element.

  1. Select a Twitter Widget.

  2. Enter your Twitter user name and customize the widget settings if necessary. Click Finish & Grab Code.

  3. Select all of the text in the code box and copy. (Hint: Ctrl+C will copy all selected text)

  4. Log into Weebly and navigate to the page where you want the Twitter badge. Drag a Custom HTML element to your page.

  5. Click on the element and click Edit Custom HTML in the toolbar that pops up.

  6. Paste the code you copied into the Custom HTML element. (Hint: Use Ctrl+V to paste.) Click on another part of the screen to save the changes and see your Twitter badge.

You may want to place your Twitter badge in a 2-Column element so that you can have text or images beside it.



Dr. Carrie Brown's key sites for social media/journalism

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We Follow -  site that helps you find people to follow on Twitter
Co-Tweet - website that allows groups
Google Alerts - sign up to follow beats
Google Reader - sign up to follow blogs (RSS)
Brizzly, Tweetdeck. Seismic - platforms that allow you to manage Twitter.  Brizzly is web based. Tweetdeck and Seismic need to be downloaded to your computer.
Bit.ly - use this to shorten URLs for Twitter


On-air appearance

Site with decent anchoring tips - such as how to read prompter, dress, and speak on air.
Dress tips
Site where you can buy consignment clothes from actual news anchors!
Clothing tips powerpoint.

Pre-show Teases from the Field

Here are some examples of reporters doing pre-show teases.
WCAU-TV, Philadelphia
WPXI - TV, Pittsburgh

Newsworthiness PPT

This powerpoint outlines the importance of developing a good sense of newsworthiness as a means to create good content. 

Earn money, get free stuff and learn more about using multimedia. 

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U of M journalism senior, Jasmine Hockett is a representative with ReadyU.  She gets paid to promote, get videos and write stories for the site.  Jasmine earned a free flip camera, she earned $800 last semester and has received other cool stuff.  Best of all - she's learning how to do new things online.  I've asked Jasmine to let you know more about this opportunity.  To apply go to Repnation.com 

Jasmine wrote: This opportunity is absolutely amazing.  You will be thrown into pool of other competition as an editor of a ReadyU facebook page.  Basically I used what I knew about our campus and marketed it online.  Other editors at other schools were doing the same.  All of the editors had the chance to compete with each other for prizes. Each week we would do a conference call to get new ideas from each other and drive traffic to our pages.  I learned how to really market, but most of all I learned great editing skills which are the most important skills anyone could have.  My job included uploading video, pictures, serving as the campus liason and being familiar with any ReadyU products that were to be marketed to students.


Online Manual for Panasonic AG-DVC20 Pro

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Manual is located below.

agdvc20_manual.pdf
File Size: 3953 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File


How to do a standup.

TV reporters and Memphis journalism grads Kendall Jones and Sarah Bleau show us how they think of standups.  

Link to advice about standups:
http://www.newslab.org/2009/07/27/what-not-to-do-in-a-standup/


Additional Internships

If you would like to do additional internships (beyond Jour 4649) consider a university internship. Please meet with me first, so that we can plan out how best to use credit hours to take multiple internships.
Here is the contract you must fill out. 

Fax the cover page (with approval from her field supervisor), page 5 and page 6 to Dixie Crase at 901-678-5324 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              901-678-5324      end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              901-678-5324      end_of_the_skype_highlighting

Contact info:
Dixie R. Crase, Ph.D., CFCS
Director of Academic Internships
The Washington Center Campus Liaison
University of Memphis
Memphis, TN 38152
Phone 901-678-3102 ,  901-678-3102, 901-678-3102     Fax 901-678-5324
http://www.memphis.edu/internships/
Internship Guarantee Program
http://www.memphis.edu/internships/guarantee.htm


 

Broaden your horizons.  Study Abroad

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Study abroad or within the U.S. It's an excellent way to see the world through a global lens.  Important experience for journalists.  Often, it can cost the same as going to the U of M!  Check it out.