✍️ Journalism Jobs and Media News Update ✍️ — September 19
527 new jobs; Salary negotiation tips; NPR TinyDesk; Julian Assange; Taylor Swift and Beyoncé beats; UK broadcasters' new app
Hello folks and happy Tuesday! I’m pleased to say we added a total of 527 new journalism jobs and internships to the board this week. You can find newsrooms of all sizes, from The New York Times to small-town TV stations, and in all areas of journalism from reporting and editing roles to product and strategy.
While scouring LinkedIn this week I noticed that it had introduced a “Reposted” designation to signal when companies regurgitate the same roles over and over. I mention this for two reasons: 1) too many of the jobs posted on LinkedIn are older than one month, and 2) you can be assured that you won’t find anywhere near the same levels of regurgitation on Inside The Newsroom’s job board.
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Applications aside, we have another roundup of the most interesting and important news from the world of media. This week we look at Taylor Swift and Beyoncé becoming their own coverage beats; a free new streaming app from the biggest UK broadcasters; how Australian politicians are rallying around Julian Assange; the creator of NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert series leaving NPR; essential tips on the art of salary negotiation; and lessons learned from The New York Times Print Hub.
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That’s all for today. Enjoy the news roundup and I’ll speak again later this week!
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Taylor Swift and Beyoncé Beats
We start things off with the news that Gannett is hiring full-time reporters to cover Taylor Swift and Beyoncé. In another period of time, this news wouldn’t have made global headlines, because why not cover two of the largest musicians in the world the same way the largest companies and sports teams have dedicated journalists, and often whole teams, cover their every move? Especially when Swift’s current concert tour is expected to generate close to $1.5 billion.
The anger to the new roles comes from the fact that Gannett has laid off hundreds of journalists and editors over the past year, from what I would call essential coverage areas such as healthcare and investigative, among others. Unfortunately that stance on the hierarchy of importance isn’t shared, and as Nate Silver points out, Gannett isn’t alone in its content strategy. For example, among the NYT’s most popular articles, at the time of writing, include “100 Easy Dinner Recipes for Right Now”, and “‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ and Scorsese’s Bride Like No Other.” As hard as it is to understand what the majority of people want to read, covering it is a central pillar to keep the lights on.
UK Broadcasters To Launch Joint Streaming App
Programmes from the UK’s largest TV broadcasters including The BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 will be available on a consolidated free app next year. The new platform, named Freely, is perhaps the biggest step yet toward the end of traditional terrestrial TV, is down more than 25% since 2011, including 68% among 16-24-year-olds, according to regulator Ofcom. It’s also estimated that currently 15% of UK households watched streaming apps via broadband internet connections over a TV aerial, a figure which could rise to 50% by the end of the decade.
How Australia’s Politicians Rallied Behind Julian Assange
Next week a delegation of prominent Australian politicians will travel to the U.S. to lobby on behalf of Julian Assange, who is currently incarcerated in the UK awaiting extradition to the U.S. on charges linked to WikiLeaks’ publication of leaked government documents in the early 2010s. Assange, who has spent more than a decade fighting for his freedom, has galvanized more than 60 Australian MPs from different political backgrounds, who believe Assange has suffered enough and want him to be allowed to walk free. The delegation has varying reasons for wanting the U.S. to drop its charges, according to freelance journalist Jon Allsop, from “characterizing him as a brave truth-teller to the broader fear” to the fear of “allowing the extradition of someone who hasn’t been accused of wrongdoing in their country of citizenship would set a precedent that China, among other countries, might exploit.” This is definitely one to watch next week.
Lessons Learned From the Print Hub
A super interesting piece I came across in The New York Times from Sarah Bahr, a roving digital editor at The New York Times, on some of the lessons she learned after she spent time working with the newspaper’s print hub. Among the biggest differences, and challenges, Sarah encountered was making digital story headlines appropriate for print. Little did I know that unlike for online, print headlines should not split phrases, i.e. “Each line of a headline should be able to stand alone as a single thought, meaning any line other than the final one should generally end with a noun or an action verb.” Here are some more tidbits that I didn’t know: Every line needs to be capitalized; generally don’t use full names in headlines, other than in obituaries; and perhaps most difficult is the requirement for headlines to fill allotted space exactly, which I can only imagine to be the nuisance of all nuisances when under intense time pressure.
NPR TinyDesk Creator Leaves
Bob Boilen, the visionary behind NPR’s esteemed Tiny Desk Concert series and All Songs Considered, has announced that he is leaving the organization after 35 years. The Tiny Desk started after Boilen and co-creator Stephen Thompson were unable to hear Laura Gibson’s 2008 SXSW performance, so they half-jokingly invited her to their office for a concert. The concept quickly became a “prime venue for artists seeking an authenticity baptism” which has hosted many of the biggest musicians on the planet, including Taylor Swift, Coldplay and Alicia Keys. Boilen’s exit follows other recent exits for NPR executives, including the retirement of president/CEO John Lansing and SVP for news Nancy Barnes.
I’ll leave you with one of my favorites from two years ago, when NPR visited the home of Carlos Vives….
Tips On the Art of Negotiation
We finish today on a handy column by Upasna Gautam, senior product leader at CNN and a columnist for the Reynolds Journalism Institute, on the dos and don’ts of salary negotiation. The biggest ‘don’t’ is declaring your desired compensation too early, as “if you say a number that’s too low, they may wonder if you’re senior enough for the role.” Similarly “if you give a number that’s too high, you could get disqualified before ever starting the interview process.” From my experience, the trick is to have a salary range in mind, with the lower end determined on what you need to live and survive, and the upper end based on what other similar roles pay. And if you really like a role but the salary is just too low, you can always negotiate other benefits such as paid time off and performance-based bonuses. Thanks Upasna!