Full Circle Associates

I'm clearing out some old drafts, so be warned, a flush of short blog posts coming. Here is a piece of advice worth considering...

Teaching Online Journalism - More advice for (young) journalists

2. Talk to strangers.

Paul’s advice to “make contacts” and “do things and talk to people” will resonate with many journalism educators — and maybe some editors too. Why are so many students’ stories so boring? It is not because educators (or editors) have seen it all before. No. It’s because some students (and some journalists) stick to what they already know. They don’t circulate enough. They don’t talk to strangers.

Come on, you’re not a little child anymore. You cannot be afraid of strangers if you want to be a journalist. Get over it.

Yanick Rice Lamb gave some wonderful advice about this in a column at the SPJ site: “You have to circulate to percolate.” When you first glance at her column, you might think it’s only about diversity issues. Wrong. It’s about the whole idea of becoming a good journalist.

This is why we have communities and social networks!