Monica Guzman, Seattle Post online reporter, asked people on twitter to give her journalism class tips to break in to the social media. One says journalists should join a lot of sites, like Facebook and Twitter, and be everywhere the audiences are. Another adviced journalists to come out of their byline and be out in the open for interaction.
They struck me as the biggest difference between traditional and online journalism. While all focus is on content in print journalism, the expectation of online journalism goes beyond the stories to the personal information of journalists and their interaction with their audiences. My question is, wouldn’t news be judge based intimate details on top of journalistic skills? Seems like journalists today have to play their own PR for their stories and expose their personal life like a celebrity.
When I chose to major in Journalism, I didn’t think selling myself would be part of the job.
