New media and blog experience gets journalism students hired

Good to hear first hand what I already believe, new media experience gets college grads jobs.

Ezra Shapiro, who teaches at Cal State Northridge, reports that the school has had several meetings with editors and reporters from four dailies in the area, the L.A. Times, the L.A. Daily News, the Orange County Register, and the Ventura County Star.

Their question: What would make them want to hire our graduates?

Not surprisingly, the first criterion was the ability to write a good story. But they all quickly added that any multimedia experience, academic or not (running a blog, video editing, etc.) would be seen as a big plus on a resume.

The most interesting comment, made and backed up by several of our contacts, was that even if students had no technical expertise, they needed the ability to conceive a story as sequential segments that could eventually frame slideshow or video coverage. That’s quite a departure from the old inverted pyramid.

Bodes well for LexBlog’s getting university interns to work on upcoming projects.