Getting ahead as a journalist

You cannot afford to be a non-wired journalist in today’s newsroom. Here’s how to join the digital savvy:

Social networks

• Are you on MySpace? Sure, it’s a few years old, but it offers a lot of customization, and they’re adding features.
• Are you on Facebook? It’s a good campus networking tool, and a way to find people who share your interests.
• Are you on LinkedIn? You’re planning on getting a job, right? Start networking and making connections.
• Do you belong to Ning groups? At the very least, you should join Wired Journalists; great for learning and networking. Also check out Visual Editors and The Modern Journalist. Look for other things you’re interested in — like favorite sports teams, music or hobbies.

Blogs

• Read blogs. Start with a favorite topic — sports, hobbies, music, whatever you’re interested in. Find half a dozen blogs that you enjoy; participate, leave comments, and follow links to other blogs and sites. Find a variety of blogs written by young bloggers at 20-Something Bloggers
• Start a blog. Try Blogger, WordPress or Tumblr. (All are free, and you can always buy a domain — now or later — and route your blog there.) Try to post daily; link to other blogs and sites. Promote your blog when you leave comments for others and on Ning groups.
• Micro-blog. Twitter, Plurk, Identi.ca, or any of the other dozens of Twitter clones. I guarantee you can find breaking news on Twitter before you can find it in the main-stream media, plus dozens of other interesting things each day. Sign up and use it for a month. Follow people you know, and a few you don’t. Post throughout the day: Share what you’re doing, what you’re looking for and links of interest.

Read, share and organize

• Subscribe to RSS feeds. RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, lets Web publishers syndicate content as a feed. It also makes it easier for you to follow a number of blogs or sites from one Web page. Sign up for a feed reader — try Google Reader or Bloglines. Go to a favorite Web site or blog, and subscribe to the feed. (Look for the orange RSS icon, or the words “RSS,” “Atom,” or “subscribe.”)
• Bookmark sites and stories. Social bookmarking lets you organize, store and share information. Sign up for a bookmarking service — try Delicious or StumbleUpon. Use tags to mark what items are about, and to share them with others. Also check out Digg or Mixx.
• Use Google Docs. Google is taking over the world because they’re smart. Google Docs lets you to access files from any computer online, and also lets you work offline. Also check out Google Notebook, which lets you clip and save info from the Web in one document.
• Use a wiki. You’ve heard of — and probably used — Wikipedia. Wikis can be used to organize things with several contributors; set yours up at PBWiki

Multimedia

• Post photos. Get a digital camera — preferably one that takes stills and video. Sign up at a photo-sharing site like Flickr or Buzznet and post away. Don’t forget to comment on other user’s photos — this is a social community, after all.
• Post videos. First, if you’re not already spending time on on video sharing sites, you should. Get in the habit of looking to see what’s popular and what’s new a couple of times a week; watch professional and amateur video to get a feel for what’s possible and what works. Shoot and edit your own videos and post them — try YouTube or Vimeo.
• Make a map. Google Maps has made it very easy to create a map and post it on a Web site — you can even add photos and other information — without knowing any code. Take it a step farther: Create a map from a spreadsheet.
• Sign up for text alerts. Several sites offer breaking news alerts (Try CNN and MSNBC.) Text alerts are available from several music sites and during the Olympics.
• Use widgets. Widgets let you embed information on your site or blog from somewhere else. There are news widgets, political widgets, Olympics widgets and blog widgets. You can also create widgets — try Widgetbox and SpringWidgets.