Finding your way to niche jobs in journalism
Andrew Seaman, Stephen Duarte, Gianna Palmer and Jame Jackson present their CMA Gig keynote. At right, Carl Corry, convention director, introduces the panel.
By Joshua Pohl
Google sponsored the final keynote of the CMA that featured three speakers from LinkedIn as well as an editor from Stitches. The session featured speakers reviewing how to find and navigate untraditional and uncommon jobs in the media career field.
The session covered a multitude of tips and tricks to finding a niche job outside of basic reporting, editing and broadcasting jobs. Leading the conversation was Senior News Editor of LinkedIn, Andrew Seaman. Seaman covered how one niche growing job is the position of creative manager.
“I was like, we’re hiring so many people so literally there are a dozen creative managers that are helping people with their content and things like that. Who knows how better to do that than people who have worked in media to this day and stayed with it. So that’s a really cool role that is expanding.”
Jame Jackson continued the discussion sharing her experience as working as a creative manager for LinkedIn and her work with her website The Blog Misfit. She explained how her different paths in journalism led her to burnout and eventually led her to her job at LinkedIn due to its unique setup.
They went on to discuss how for many graduates they were never taught about the niche jobs actually available. They explained how despite the struggles that come with it people can make their own way through the world of journalism. Jackson explained how you have to be ruthless and make your own way happy.
“I’m such a huge proponent and believer that you can make your own way. In many ways I look at it that there are no excuses. You can find a way you can you know, I was I went to New York for 200 bucks, right? I slept on someone’s couch up like in the Bronx and I just come to the city every day and change into Starbucks and pass out my resume in front of Conde Nast. Like you just have to have this mentality this beast mode of like, I am going to make it happen no matter what.”
Gianna Palmer, who previously worked at WNYC, explained how she found her way to the company Sticher through her love of audio. She felt that despite many believing there are very few jobs in audio that there are untraditional jobs available such as her current status as a story editor reviewing audio for podcasts.
“Almost no one I knew when I was in college, was getting a job at that moment. So I was just applying, applying, applying and doing random little fellowships and just trying to get out there in a way and so I didn’t take anything for granted.”
The talk ended with a reminder that you can find uncommon jobs across the world of media and journalism. The floor was then opened to a question and answer that closed out the session.