Here’s part two of our discussion with five young journalists who sat on a panel at the Society for News Design workshop in Las Vegas this month. They had so many interesting things to say, I couldn’t fit it all into one column. I guarantee that, if you have the good fortune to run into one of them, they’ll have a great deal more to tell.
So, here’s another good take on what they presented, and it’s chock-full of good links and resources to check out. I wanted to know where they looked for inspiration and ideas, what advice they would give a young journalism student and the best advice they’d been given. Here’s what they said:
Darla Cameron: Online, I like design*sponge and anything else that uses texture, depth and white space. For GIS, I love the work of Tom Patterson, Mark Harrower and The New York Times’ online maps. Otherwise, I don’t have to look much farther than my colleagues at the St. Pete Times. I’m lucky be surrounded by all these amazing journalists — the stories they dig up are incredible, and I love to help tell them.
Tyson Evans: There are so many brilliant minds out there. Some of those whom I closely follow: Paula Scher, Khoi Vinh, Adrian Holovaty, Michael Bierut, Scott Dadich and Jonathan Harris. I also think it’s important to look beyond our ecosystem, so I look to Steve Jobs, James Nachtwey, Malcolm Gladwell and many, many others.
Mike Higdon: Generally, (I look) everywhere. Two of my professors, my journalist girlfriend and I constantly brainstorm. We criticize and invent and destroy ideas every day in hopes we stumble upon answers. I read blogs and articles and books about journalism’s history and future. Visually, I just try to look closer and longer at everything. Sometimes I tilt my head or close one eye.
- News media Web sites
- Museum Web sites
- AIGA (American Inst. of Graphic Arts)
- Popular Media Outlets — networks/TV show sites (Discovery, ABC, etc)
Cameron: For maps, I make use of the plethora of free government data online. To learn Web design and Flash, I used Lynda.com and other, (more free!) tutorials from Adobe.
Evans: The design/geek in me is a religious reader of A List Apart, Design Observer, Boxes and Arrows and the blogs of Jack Gruber, Eric Meyer, Ben Fry and 37signals.
Higdon: Older, smarter people. I try to stay in touch with everyone who ever had a great idea so I can listen to them discuss it and figure it out. Web developers and designers are also great resources; they sit on many answers to journalism’s future without even knowing it. I also like MediaShift Lab.
Novak uses:
- Program specific resources: Flash/Actionscript blogs: actionscript.org, gotoandlearn.com, theflashblog.com
- Forums & Blogs — I mostly Google through these or get them via keyword search feeds: VizEds is one for example.
- Google News Scans for key words
- Other professionals and colleagues
Sholin: The best resource that’s out there is your own network of peers and colleagues. I use Google Reader, Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook, LinkedIn, e-mail, and IM to keep up with everyone that I can. A quick question to the cloud usually brings in more answers than I need. My boss has rightfully accused me of “crowdsourcing my job” a few times in the last few months. The more we help each other out, the better we become at parsing all that information out there.
Cameron: “Go big or go home,” from my high school journalism adviser.
Evans: It’s not so much a single quote, but rather a philosophy hammered home by a number of mentors: Be a relentless editor — of your design, photography, writing, and even your goals and strategies. Everything is better with refinement. “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”Higdon: “Who cares what they think?”
Novak: “You can do anything you put your mind to.”
Sholin: Appropriately enough for this panel, I’d say the single best piece of advice I’ve ever been given came from a grandfather who told me to “do it while I’m young.” He was talking about a month of travel I had planned in Europe and Africa for myself when I was 23, but I think it applies to many of the situations we find ourselves in as innovators.
Don’t wait for permission to try something that once seemed impossible. No one is going to offer you that dream assignment; you’re going to have to take it for yourself when the opportunity comes up.
Cameron: There are stories to be told, and really cool ways to tell them. The field of journalism needs you — it needs to learn from the way you interact with the world. It just doesn’t know how yet, so that’s your job to shake things up and figure that out.
Evans: Diversify your skill set and mind-set. Understand the basics of programming and design and you’ll be unstoppable. And, be eclectic — a good designer should be reading magazines, blogs and books about psychology, history and culture.
Higdon: Prepare for a paradigm shift. Right now journalists have an opportunity to invent and discover with more freedom than ever before. If that doesn’t make your blood pump, don’t waste our time.
Novak: Create your own opportunities. Start a blog, join the school paper, find an internship, do side projects on your own. Use these types of experiences to learn how to tell stories through all media types and don’t ever allow yourself to be limited.
Sholin: If you’re a journalism student getting ready for a career in the news business, the best advice I can give you is to keep an open mind about the job you want. If you truly think the only place for you is as a star reporter at a major metro, by all means, seek that out and don’t stop until you get the gig you’re after.
But if your goal isn’t that sharply defined, keep your options open and don’t be afraid to take a less traditional position in a different department, at a smaller organization, or even outside the conventional “news” business at a nonprofit or a technology company. Think about a career that’s defined by your work, not by a list of job titles.
