Guest Speaker: Mandy Jenkins
Posted by jsouthee on February 10, 2011
MANDY JENKINS, SOCIAL MEDIA PRODUCER FOR TBD (a local news site), visited my Communications 361 class (Online Journalism) today to share her experiences in her field. I appreciate what she had to share with us and attained some useful advice. In College Jenkins said that “reaching out and connecting with people individually” helped her land jobs early and I plan to emulate her actions. She showed her interest in other peoples’ careers by asking questions, sharing her own work with them, and therefore making connections. Jenkins has worked for TBD for 6 months now, where her duties include keeping track of news tips on Twitter and writing some news pieces. Starting a Twitter account in 2007 (although without much of a grasp of it yet) before it was popular, Jenkins had a hunch that social media was going somewhere for her as a journalist- in fact she created her own position as “Social Media Producer” at TBD. What I found impressive about TBD was that there are 200 + bloggers affiliated with TBD but there are only 15 professional journalists working there; it really says a lot about the changing landscape of journalism. Blogs are making their mark in journalism history, and what would traditionally be considered competition is now a resource. Jenkins herself said that today “social media can really, really help you as students,” and I can’t help but agree; what better way to profile your journalistic skills than to demonstrate your abilities and knowledge of social media in a blog?
Thanks for sharing, Mandy!
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