One Day, One Job » radio

American Public Media

Willy Franzen — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 16:00:30 +0000

When I was in high school, my family carpooled with two other families. When my parents were driving, I got to sit in the front seat, which meant that I controlled the radio. My usual choice was HOT 97, New York City’s finest Hip Hop and R&B station. But when the other parents were driving, it was usually their choice, and more often than not the choice was the local NPR station (check out our post on jobs at National Public Radio). I can’t say that I learned to like it then, but I do find myself listening to public radio far more often than my high school self would have ever imagined. If you listen to NPR, there’s a good chance that you listen to something produced by American Public Media. They are a St. Paul, MN based non-profit organization that “is the largest owner and operator of public radio stations and a premier producer and distributor of public radio programming in the nation,” while also being “the largest producer and distributor of classical music programming in the United States.” So if you listen to NPR in Minnesota, Southern California, or South Florida, you probably listen to one of American Public Media 43 stations or 32 translators.

Listeners Like You

American Public Media reaches 16.5 million listeners every week, and are able to have such a wide reach not only because of their own network, but also because they have 20+ national programs that are broadcast across over 800 stations. These programs include A Prairie Home Companion, Marketplace, and Performance Today. American Public Media has a ton of information on their website, so I really recommend that you dig in and start to learn more about them. Their Organizational Structure page is probably the best place to start. Then you might want to check out their Accomplishments, their FAQs, and their programs. If you like what you see (or hear), then you’ll want to check out jobs at American Public Media. They have a bunch of openings, and a few seem well suited for new or recent grads including Associate Producer – The Madeleine Brand (Pasadena, CA), Django/Python Developer – Web & Apps (Pasadena, CA), Marketing Specialist (Los Angeles, CA), Newscaster/Weekend Fill-In (St. Paul, MN), and Web Developer (Los Angeles, CA). There are lots of options, so check them all out.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you listen to an American Public Media station?

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia

Willy Franzen — Wed, 04 May 2011 16:41:43 +0000

Ever consider a career in teaching? Here’s some info on how to get started.

There’s a long history of poking fun at Martha Stewart, and it started well before she went to prison. There’s just something funny about someone who takes perfection in domesticity as seriously as she does. My family even played an integral role in the satire of Martha with my little sister’s appearance in the parody magazine Martha Stuart’s Better Than You at Entertaining, which was a follow up to Is Martha Stuart Living? (here’s a picture my sister as young Martha Stewart in the parody). We can keep laughing at Martha Stewart, but she’ll always get the last laugh. She has an amazing track record of reaching the top in nearly everything that she has done–from babysitting for Mickey Mantle’s kids to starting a successful catering company in her basement to building a New York, NY based media empire in Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. Martha Stewart is apparently now worth well over half a billion dollars, and has used her personal brand to build amazing print, television, online, and merchandise properties.

Are You Living?

Whether or not you’re a Martha Stewart fan, you have to be impressed by what she’s done throughout her career. She’s had an amazing ability to stay relevant, and a lot of that has to do with her media strategy. She easily could have settled with a successful catering business, or a popular magazine, or having her own television show, but she didn’t. It seems that she is obsessed with using every channel possible to reach people with her “unique lifestyle content.” That’s what Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia is all about. If you enjoy the Martha Stewart brand and want to work on the media or merchandise side, then you definitely need to take a look at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia’s Careers page. There are some great opportunities posted in their job listings, and a few seem suitable for new or recent grads including: Assistant Food Editor, PHP Application Developer – Internet Content Management Systems, Front-End Web Developer, Decorative Pillow and Bedding Accessory Designer, Executive Assistant, Freelance Recipe Taster, Retail Merchandising Assistant, Apparel Designer – Martha Stewart Pets and Quilt Designer. You can also apply for an unlisted position if you don’t see something that suits you.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Are you a Martha Stewart fan?

Disaster Accountability Project

Willy Franzen — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 16:33:33 +0000

We got a few inches of snow here in Chicago yesterday. It wasn’t an all out disaster like it might have been in a southern state where an inch of snow is cause for shutting down everything, but I’m sure it caused a few headaches for people. Even simple things like a small snowstorm remind us that we can’t control everything. Disasters, whether they’re caused by weather, accidents, terrorists, or negligence, are always a risk. There’s not much that we can do to prevent most types of disasters, but we can always be better prepared to cope with them. The Disaster Accountability Project is a West Hartford, CT based non-profit organization that aims to improve “the nation’s disaster management systems through public accountability, citizen oversight and empowerment, whistle-blower engagement, and policy research.”

Finding Opportunity in a Disaster

It should be no surprise that the Disaster Accountability Project was started in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. It was a natural disaster that was actually predicted to happen (even if only a few days in advance), yet it was mismanaged at nearly every level. If our governments can’t adequately prepare for what they know is coming, how will they ever deal with things like major earthquakes that come out of nowhere? The Disaster Accountability Project exists not only to push for better government preparedness, but also to blow the whistle when disasters have already happened and aren’t being addressed adequately. If this is a topic that you’re passionate, then you should get involved with the Disaster Accountability Project. They don’t have any jobs posted right now, but they have a ton of volunteer opportunities that could turn into jobs in the future. They’re especially looking for people with the following skills: online research (basic, policy, legal), organizing & outreach, fundraising (small and large donations, grant research and writing, evening planning), writing, graphic design, and web design & programming.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Are you prepared for a disaster?

WGBH

Willy Franzen — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 13:08:58 +0000

We’ve catered to the PBS junkies before when we’ve covered entry level jobs at PBS here and WTTW11′s internships on One Day, One Internship, and we’re going to do it again today. WGBH is a non-profit PBS affiliate based out of Boston that also happens to be the “single largest producer of PBS prime-time and online programming.” They started out by broadcasting the Boston Symphony Orchestra over the radio in 1951, but they’ve expanded to television and the web since. It’s really amazing how much of PBS’s programing comes out of WGBH. One of my all-time favorites was ZOOM, which is a little embarrassing to admit, since I was a bit old to be watching it at the time. Another interesting thing about WGBH that I picked up from Wikipedia is that they’re “considered a leader in services for people who are deaf, hard-of-hearing, blind, or visually impaired.” WGBH actually “invented television closed captioning, audio description (Descriptive Video Service), and created the Rear Window Captioning System for films.” As you can see, WGBH is an innovator not just in public television, but in all media, and probably a great place to work.

Working at WGBH

If you’re looking to get a start in television, public television is the perfect place to begin. And if you’re going to go into public television, you might as well work with the best at WGBH. Their Jobs page shows quite a few openings, which we, unfortunately, can’t link to because of the way that they’ve set up their website. That’s ok because their Jobs page is easy enough to navigate. You can look through all of the jobs yourself, but we think that the most appropriate positions for new college grads are probably limited to: Account Coordinator, Board Relations Coordinator, Compensation and Benefits Specialist, NOVA Web Developer, Production Coordinator (New York), Production Secretary (Antiques Road Show), Production Secretary (TV Direct Response & Marketing), Radio Producer/Announcer, Secretary/Office Coordinator (Masterpiece Theater), and Stenocaptioner. You can apply for the jobs online directly from the job descriptions. They don’t accept unsolicited materials in job applications, so make sure that you stick to what’s asked for. All of the jobs are located in Boston, MA unless otherwise noted.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What’s your favorite programming from WGBH?

National Public Radio

Willy Franzen — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 13:07:46 +0000

A child’s first sign of teenage (pre-teenage?) rebellion often begins at the radio dial. The parent’s up-to-this-point unchallenged decision of what to listen to while in the car is called into question, and all hell breaks loose. If there are multiple kids in the family (or even just in the car), the negotiation can quickly becom more heated than a multi-lateral peace process in a war-torn nation. The parent will fight hard to maintain his or her right to National Public Radio, but the kid will persist in his or her challenge to hear something that feeds a suddenly “eclectic” taste in music. Often the parents cede this battle in hopes of winning in the future (bad idea!), which results in the parent’s driving the kids around the mini-van listening to rap music that would be a lot more offensive if the parent knew what some of the words meant. Eventually the rebellious tykes will grow up and realize that they too want to be more cultured, and they slowly, but surely come around to listening to NPR. Or maybe some kids just never speak up. They like NPR from the start. Maybe those are the ones who end up taking entry-level jobs at NPR.

Working at NPR

If you don’t know, National Public Radio “is an internationally acclaimed producer and distributor of noncommercial news, talk, and entertainment programming.” They’re non-profit too! Since most people who will end up working for NPR, probably listen to NPR, we’re going to jump right into the jobs. NPR offers something called a Kroc Fellowship, which was “established to identify and develop a new generation of extraordinary journalists for the public radio system.” Typically 3 fellows are selected each year, and they get “rigorous, hands-on training in every aspect of public radio journalism — writing, reporting, producing and editing, for both radio and the Web.” The fellowships start in August, but applications happen almost a year in advance, so this is something to look at for next year. Getting into this program is a long shot, but it is well worth a try if you want to be a journalist. Here are all the details.

NPR also offers regular, non-fellowship jobs for new college graduates. We ran over their list of available jobs to see what would be appropriate for our readers. Although the only clearly defined entry-level position at NPR is as a Staff Tax Accountant, we took a long, hard look at the job titles and descriptions and found quite a few opportunities that look to be well suited to new college grads. These include Marketing Manager; Consumer Products, Web Metrics Analyst, Business Development Analyst, Marketing Specialist, IT Staff Technologist, and Research Analyst. There are also a number of software/tech jobs that have experience requirements that would probably scare off most entry-level candidates, but might still be worth a look. You can find these and all of NPR’s current openings on the NPR Jobs page. NPR is located in Washington, DC, and so are all of the jobs we mentioned. Applying online looks to be straightforward, so get to it!

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you listen to NPR?

Associated Press

Willy Franzen — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 13:00:27 +0000

On Tuesday we talked about becoming a blogger and sneaking into the journalism profession through the back door, but today we’re going to talk about the “legit route.” The Associated Press is world’s largest and oldest news-gathering organization, and for that reason it’s probably one of the most respected names in journalism.

Technically, the AP is a not-for-profit cooperative. So, you might be saying, “stick these guys with the other non-profits on the weekends!” Since the cooperative is owned by the contributing newspapers, radio stations, and television stations, we think we’ve put the AP and its entry-level jobs in the right place.

Basically, the AP is the news. Go pick up a newspaper and see how many times they get the byline. So if you want to get into any type of journalism, there is no better place that the Associated Press. Wikipedia does a much better job of telling the AP’s history, so we’ll send you there for that and get right down to jobs.

We love-love-love the way the Associated Press’ jobs landing page (before you get on their careers site) breaks down their opportunities. For Students… For Word People… For Picture People… For Graphics People… For Radio People… For Television People… For Online People… For Technology People… For Sales People… For Administrative People… Each has a description about the opportunities for the specified types of people. It manages to be extremely inviting to all job seekers, while at the same time delivering a tailored message to 10 different audiences (but seriously, who considers himself administrative?). The one unfortunate thing is that these descriptions don’t have a link to a page with specific opportunities for each. That would be an absolutely killer implementation. AP are you listening?

From the landing page, we headed to the AP’s main careers site, which struck fear in our hearts. After such a welcoming intro, we were faced with the ugliness of having to register to search their job opportunities… or so we thought. We actually found a tiny little link that will allow you to search jobs - there’s no need to register unless you want to apply. From there you can show all jobs and be on your merry way…

Or you can just go straight to the entry-level friendly jobs that we hand picked for our wonderful, soon to be college graduate readers. If you’re into Technology, take a look at the openings for Business Product Analyst, Order Processing Specialist, Taxonomy Developer, and Tier 1 Product Support Specialist. For techies with great communications skills, there’s a job as the Intranet Manager. And the future journalists in the group will be happy to see jobs such as APTN Newsperson, Online Video Network Product Specialist, and Medical/Science Writer. These jobs are in a variety of big city locations, but the majority are in New York City.

We have a feeling that many of the more news-y jobs at the Associated Press are actually at the local bureaus. So, if you’ve figured out where you want to live after graduation, you can use the AP contact page to inquire about job opportunities at any of the local bureaus. If you can’t figure out where you want to live, why not try contacting them all? Report back in the comments section about which bureaus have entry-level openings and help your fellow job searchers.

Note: On April 23rd we revisited entry-level jobs at the Associated Press.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What do you think is the better way into journalism? A first job at the Associated Press? Blogging on your own? Or a combination of the two?