citizenkat

As social media creeps into our personal lives, it more than willingly helps itself to our professional lives. You're a journalist you say? I'm terribly sorry. After the birth of the internet, text messaging and smart phones, you're chances of ever having a full day off just left the building. But hey, at least you'll never miss the opportunity to bag a great story again. One useful tip that I've found in my time as both a freelance and student journalist is the value of public opinion that is found on social media. It's sort of a short cut to breaking news. Think about it, almost half of the headlines today are about whatever Donald Trump last tweeted to his captive audience. After looking at that, there's an endless supply of people to talk to just in the comments. Let's not go too deep down that rabbit hole though. As the current news editor for the Daily 49er, I have found an abundance of stories from the outcries that come from the Facebook or In...

Ah social media, finally a place were you can socialize, edit your mistakes, make your life look like a movie set and put a filter on anything that looks out of place — all in the comfort of your own, well,  wherever you are. Having social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter at the tap of your iPhone sure does make life rather instantaneous. It also can be quite invasive, but that's a topic for another time. As an individual, I find social media to be a bit of a sad replacement for a social life as some may use it. As a journalist, it's the best method there is for promoting the stories you've just poured blood, sweat and the tears of your sources into. I used to work as an intern at a alt-weekly newspaper in San Luis Obispo county and I'll never forget the staff meeting where the top editors told their writers, that they would have to start posting their stories on social media platforms to raise readership. I'll never forget the groans that came ...

This past summer, I became addicted to podcasts. I think that I may have blown right through season one of popular podcast Serial in four days. As a journalism student about to start at Cal State Long Beach, I was eager to listen to shows that held journalistic integrity. Serial, a love child of This American Life, delivers just that. After blowing through every recent episode of This American Life and both seasons of Serial, I decided to move on to their other spawn — Shit Town. As I listened, narrator and reporter, Brian Reed thoughtfully laid out the foundation for a possible murder mystery in the town of Woodstock, Alabama. Reed received the possible murder tip from a resident of Woodstock, John B. McLemore. I'll give you the very short version of a complex chain of events that led the listener from a murder case to a full on dramatized story of the people living within the so called "shit town." After McLemore committed suicide, the series took a very drastic tu...