Reinventing and marketing yourself online
Re: You can reinvent yourself
I left my last job - part reporting, part sales for a newspaper trade association - in June, partly because I was designing my own social networking plaftform and couldn't accomplish both and still have time to sleep, but partly because I was concerned that in 2010 my job would be eliminated because of the economy. I wanted to be the one in control. I am on Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, LinkedIn (about 40 groups), and have three blogs. I have extensively trained myself in Web 2.0, online marketing and social media - and I'm working on two business management e-books, which I'll publish through Booklocker. I spent many hours marketing myself online and blogging. It's what has to happen if someone laid off is to reinvent herself or himself and find a new job or new entrepreneurial venture. I also take part in, sponsor and now will host a live local event, promoted on LinkedIn and Meetup, etc.
Find your passion, blog about it, talk about it online, bring people together locally that have the same passion, once you blog create an e-newsletter and as traffic grows and you partner with others for the live event, start looking for paid sponsors. Chances are they'll start coming to you.
Sharon Hill
http://www.newspapertiger.com/
http://www.yoretown.wordpress.com/
http://www.workathomejob.ning.com/
www.linkedin/in/sharonhill
Passionate about journalism
Re: You can reinvent yourself
That was great advice, Jim.
Madhu hit the nail on the head when she said we got into journalism because we are passionate people who care 
about the world around us. That's why I cringe when people suggest I pursue a career in PR or do freelance copyediting with Guru.com. The reason I loved journalism was because I'm an idealist. I felt passionate about what I did. I felt that, in a way, the stories I told, the inequities I exposed, the issues I shed light on helped make the world a better place. It's going to be tough to find a replacement for that.
It's nice to see that I'm using my free time in the right way -- brushing up on my foreign languages, writing the great American novel, getting more involved with my church, spending more time with my family, doing some renovations around the house and pursuing my favorite hobbies. Maybe I'll get through this with my sanity intact after all.
I just came on your site through a response posted to a blog from Steven A. Smith, "Still a Newspaper Man," on Poynter Online. I was cheered, well perhaps that's not the best term to describe my feelings, maybe heartened, to find that I am in good, although sadly large, company in being rudely, ungraciously kicked to the curb. My former employer offered us all, from 10 year employees to 40 year plus employees, a two-week severance package but only on the condition that we don't tell anyone how crappy we think it is.
I, and some of my other colleages, thought selling our civil rights to a work place free of discrimination, or selling our right to write letters to the editor to comment on the paper's direction or tone for two weeks pay was, in a word, cheap.
So it was with relief that I bookmarked jiltedjournalist.com to add to my regular haunts on the 'Net.
In just the few short weeks I've been unemployed, I've come fast to the same realization I saw echoed on your pages - my future won't be in journalism, at least not journalism as I've known it. First, I'm in a one-newspaper town and I don't want to move (imagine being middle-age, with family all in town and not want to leave them and friends of long standing and go somewhere else completely foreign? No sense of adventure, that's me and all the more reason to kick me out of the newsroom in favor of 20-somethings who have less than five years experience together and don't have the institutional knowledge that provides depth and context to a story. Who needs it? After all, we are writing for the young people, right? They are all reading newspapers, right?)
Even if I wanted to continue to work in newspapers, as an experienced reporter (read: older), I am the poster child for the type of job being cut (read: higher paid).
As hurt as I am, I can see this as an opportunity to stretch, grow new skills and contribute to my community in different and challenging ways. I'm freer to be more opinionated and advocate for changes and causes I believe in than when I was an objective reporter.
I'm also scared but I believe the skills I have honed over nearly 20 years of reporting on public education, police, fire, municipal governments, business and real estate will earn me a place at the table because I have a lot to offer.
I look forward to getting tips from the jiltedjournalist and hope I can add my own insights, both time tested and newly learned.
Thanks,
Beverly A. Carroll
Chattanooga, Tenn.
Jilted Journalists provides industry news, tips, personal finance information and a forum for journalists and others losing jobs in the news and newspaper industry.
Jilted Journalists welcomes print, online, broadcast reporters, editors, photographers, bloggers, designers, ad salespeople, circulation folks, press operators, TV camera people, continuity directors, techs, producers, business office staff and all the others who once were fooled into thinking they not only had good careers and job security but decent 401(k) and pension plans that would last into their retirement years.
Here you will see -- and can contribute -- original stories and tips and other goodies on:
- Survival.
- Career switches. Where can we really put those transferable skills to good use?
- How to just get by on your wits and/or good looks, or whatever other assets you may retain, besides water.
- Career switches. Where can we really put those transferable skills to good use?
This site is operated by Jim and Sue Gold and a group of recently laid off journalists, their spouses, friends and frenemies.
Contact in chief: Jim Gold, a past senior editor (not an age designation when he got the title) at The Arizona Republic, a past editor in chief at The Record of Stockton, Calif., a past assistant managing editor at the Reno Gazette-Journal, and a past variety of writing, reporting, photography, production, circulation and ad sales titles at a variety of papers in California and Massachusetts. But he's not a pastor.
Also, see us and join our group at:
www.facebook.com/jiltedjournalists.
Follow us on Twitter, which needs a shorter name:
jiltedjournos.
Experienced journalist
Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida area
reporter/editor/photographer seeking employment
(via LinkedIn)