Journalism: beyond the pen and paper (Part 1)

Journalism was once someone telling the news through a simple piece of paper. Now in 1999, it's still pen and paper, but it has entered a new medium.

Offline newspapers with web sites and online-only news sites are many. E-zines are gaining popularity on the Internet. This is not surprising. The Internet can provide fast and easy information.

The Internet can be a good resource for aspring journalists. If used correctly, any aspring journalist can gain a lot with the Internet.

Freelancing Opportunities

In my first column, I mentioned how limited freelancing is to high school students. Yes, it is still true that freelancing in the print medium is limited. But online there are quite a few freelancing opportunities.

For example, Suite 101 is a freelancing opportunity. It allows people of all ages to submit articles on a certain topic. If you're a member of suite 101, check out your functions and click on "Becoming a Contributing Editor".

The Bolt Reporter, http://www.bolt.com/reporter, offer high school students all over the country to contribute articles. By signing up Bolt will give you story ideas and you can use those or your own to contribute your story. You can even contribute stories already published in your school newspaper.

Digtal High, at http://www.sjmercury.com/digitalhigh, is another online paper. This is mostly a regional type zine, with most of the reporters being from the San Jose area. People out of the area however can freelance.

These are just three sites, but there are a lot more then this. A disclamer: Do not write for any online paper or zine for the sake of articles or references. The purpose of these sites is giving an oportunity for high school students to practice and improve their writing skills. When choosing to freelance for a online publication, think of how you can benefit them rather then just only how it would benefit you.

Mass Communication:

The Internet can help you in communicating. Mentors can be obtain through searching mentor networks on the Internet. You can join newsgroups such as alt.journalism and alt.journalism.students to get infomation about journalism and job opprtunities. Mailing lists do that as well. For mailing lists on journalism, check out mailing list seach engines such as Egroups. (http://www.egroups.com) and Listbot (http://www.listbot.com) or a typical search engine such as Yahoo! (http://www.yahoo.com) or Lycos (http://www.lycos.com).

Blank Space on School Newspaper?

As much of super reporters any school newspaper is, sometimes its just not possible to fill all those pages with stories. That is where syndicates come in. Unfortunately, it is really tough to get syndicates unless you're a member of a syndicate or group. On the Internet there are many sites that allow for school papers to take stories to be published. Most syndicates only ask that proper credit is given. Bolt Reporter (http://www.bolt.com/reporter) allows for school papers to publish stories from the Bolt Report as long credit is given. Some online syndicates may charge though. If your paper is willing to pay the prices then go to those, but if the paper is on a budget then go look around for some free syndicates.

Go To Page: 1 2

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic