Once a month the “Media Mavens” of Baltimore hold a happy hour to catch up and have a cheap beer after work. What do most of my college peers do when they go to happy hour? I’m pretty sure vlogging isn’t on their agenda. But for “Life After Deadlines” that’s what we do.

I pulled Jazzmen Tynes (see my earlier post) out of retirement, to interview some of the “Mavens” about their thoughts on the industry and to see if they had any advice for out-of-work journalists.

The first interviewee is Bryan Sears of the Towson Times. The second is Robbie Whalen of The Daily Record.

Special thanks to Turp’s Sports Bar and Restaurant for letting us film in their fine establishment.

“Is my little news ninja on the scene?”

This is part 2 of her story:

Q: What are you doing for a living now? Can you describe your responsibilities? What you like about it? Not like about it?

A: Currently, I work for Laureate Education, Inc. I’m an enrollment advisor for one of their online schools. I talk with professional adults who are interested in going back to school and help them enroll. It’s pretty easy and it pays very well. I still freelance occasionally to keep my sanity.

Q: How does your current job compare to a job in journalism?

A: It’s nothing like journalism, but I don’t look at is as a career setback. I’ve been here for about 6 months and I’ve learned a lot about business, something I never thought I’d be interested in at all.

Q: Do you ever see yourself getting back into journalism? If so, why or why not?

A: I’m not sure if I want to go into journalism, but I want some type of media job.  I’m not sure exactly what I want to do yet. I know I want to write, but I don’t know if I necessarily want to be a reporter. I’ve considered public relations (the dark side!). I’m also interested in broadcast journalism. Not on-air stuff, but I’d like to write for the newscasts. Producing would be my dream job. I’m planning to go back to school next fall, so hopefully I’ll have it all figured out by then.

Q: Advice for young j-school students entering the field?

A: Don’t give up: The medium is changing, but we still need reporters. Someone has to gather the facts, tell stories, hold elected officials accountable and keep the marketplace of ideas open whether it’s in a printed newspaper, a blog or news Web site. It’s also important to be as tech savvy as possible. The future of journalism isn’t just the moving 1,000 word story. You have to be able to incorporate multimedia elements (podcasts, slideshows, video) also. Get a camera and play around with shooting and editing video. Learn to use audio and photo editing software. Even if you’re not a guru, it helps to have some familiarity.

Photo courtesy of Jazzmen Tynes

cutting back on reporters on resources, the prospect of job hunting is terrifying. Unless you happened to be like Jazzmen Tynes.

She’s a former colleague of mine at our college newspaper, The Towerlight. For two semesters she was my boss as news editor and I personally learned a great deal from watching her work. During her college career she earned multiple journalism awards from both the Society of Professional Journalists and Columbia University. I watched her hold together a news staff, while interning at the Baltimore Sun until she eventually left for an internship at ABC-2 News in Baltimore.

So what did all of her hard work equal? She received several job offers in journalism mere weeks after her graduation–bucking the trend of j-students scouring the want ads for jobs. But there’s the rub. After taking a position with the Baltimore Messenger, part of the Patuxent Publishing Co., she left the industry.

Why did you originally want to get into journalism? What did you do to become successful enough to earn a job after Towson?

I always liked to write, I have an outgoing personality and I’m a news junkie. It seemed like going into journalism was the natural thing to do.

Can you describe the job you had and your responsibilities? What did you like about it? What did you not like about it?

I eventually took a job with Patuxent Publishing as an editorial assistant. I figured I could start at the bottom and work my way up to a reporter in a year or so. I started out as the EA for three of their papers (Baltimore Messenger, Catonsville Times and Arbutus Times). By the time I left (7 months later), I was EA for about six of Patuxent’s papers. They’d lost so many EAs, I had to pick up the slack. At first I really liked it. I learned a lot quickly and my editor let me write a lot. Typically, EAs aren’t allowed to write. Then we had a change in management and I wasn’t allowed to write for anymore. I started freelancing for b to keep my sanity and have a byline from time to time.

How do you feel about the industry, factoring in your decision to leave it?

I can only speak about “the industry” based on what I experienced at Patuxent. I worked with amazing copy editors, reporters and editors. Unfortunately, our management wasn’t so great. They hated the internet and didn’t want to experiment with new media. Any new ideas were met with criticism and dismissal. It was very stifling and frustrating environment, especially for someone trying to move up in the industry. The morale was low and my co-workers were literally depressed! There was a round of staff cuts, so we had to do more with less. I was told that I couldn’t freelance for b anymore. An editor told me, “If you can write for them, you can write for us.” But, I didn’t want to write about dogs, new computers at libraries and bingo nights in Catonsville. And I didn’t want to work more without proper compensation. I couldn’t grow and learn in that environment, so I left.

Be sure to check out part 2 of the interview in later posts where Jazzmen offers advice to young journalism students.