The Importance of Interns

July 26, 2011

If conventional wisdom and all the pundits are correct, studying journalism or communications in university these days renders you nuts or divorced from reality. After all, if the media is dying, as so many seem to say, how will any student get a job when they graduate? Or, at least, how will they get a job that they can survive on?

And pity the poor college educators who are valiantly striving to make sure they are educating their students to compete in tomorrow’s media. That is virtually mission impossible when new media trends grows old over the course of a single semester. Twitter goes from hot to old-hat. Facebook surpasses Google in hits. Blogs rapidly morph into old media.

I had a recent conversation with a former student who works in new media for NPR. She told me that I now need to teach a new form of writing: “writing to the swipe.”

The reality is that mobile news requires yet another nuance in how tomorrow’s journalists are going to have to cater to both old demands (no, print is not dead yet) and new ones from technologies not yet even invented.

Which all makes DC a new frontline in media education for so many of those who will make tomorrow’s media. New York may have Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart and a wealth of magazines, but DC has the news. And politics. And documentaries. Local journalism. New online news enterprises. Non-profits now putting out their own content. The government.

And DC has the interns.

Welcome to journalism education circa 2011, where the turnover in media is so rapid that a 25-year-old at the new media meteor known as Politico considers himself one of the old guard. The tradition of working your journalistic way up the ladder has largely disintegrated. For many, there is no ladder any more – just a large boulder to try and hop on. And many media companies are using internships today, even more than in the past, as a preferred recruiting tool for good jobs, often new jobs with a future.

“Some places may still have students push paper and get coffee, but the ones that understand what internships can be use it strategically to identify talent. For new media companies it also helps us understand the mentality and ideas of the next generation,” says Brittany Cooper, Director for Recruitment and Corporate Culture for New Media Strategies, one of the fastest growing social media marketing companies in the world.

With one estimate that there are as many as 40,000 interns a year in DC (although in many areas besides media) and many more on the way, DC has become the world’s capital for experiential education, a bridge between traditional media education and the work place, and the passport to that first real job.

Tucker Carlson, of Crossfire/MSNBC/Dancing with the Stars fame, and founder of the newest new media news organization The Daily Caller, admits he was never an intern himself. However, he says, “depending on the office they’re in, they’re apt to learn a lot. Maybe more than in class. Interns have been great for us, not necessarily for the work they do, but because we watch them carefully and hire the smart, hardworking ones. We’ve hired a bunch so far. “

The price for this entrée is that, unfortunately, most DC media internships are unpaid, today often out of financial exigencies but previously out of competition among applicants for these opportunities. The Labor Department’s rules governing internships date back to the 1930’s; they frown on unpaid internships, although there is an ambiguous exemption for internships with academic purposes. But it is a catch-22 where federal regulations would otherwise prevent the very goal of experiential learning and the kind of job creation that students might not otherwise get.

The smartest students often find the best opportunities in less obvious choices. Sirius/XM Radio offers one of the best internship programs in the country, with a program that ensures students get the training and support they need. Nature’s Best Magazine, a private version of National Geographic, offers its interns a magazine experience that will define a career. This very newspaper and its effervescent publisher Sonya Bernhardt have nurtured a decade’s worth of young journalists who have gone on to media success.

Ross Herosian is the Manager of College Programs and HR projects at Sirius/XM, and a former intern himself. “What traditional collegiate academia provides,” he says, “is a very strong base foundation, skills and practices that are ever present, no matter how much media changes. We can build on that and find and nurture the best talent. Today we have a good number of employees who are former interns, who are now mentoring themselves. From my perspective, it is completing the circle and a strong part of our culture.”

So then, perhaps college journalism programs should not even try to keep up with a media evolving so fast that their professional columnists can’t keep up. Instead, no matter how much it changes, the media will always need from their interns what Universities do best: a solid foundation of a well-rounded education. That is something no internship, no matter how good, can provide.

TBD RIP


“TBD – sums up its chances of success,” one whit said, when TBD was first announced as the name for the new sister site for Politico’s online local news. This week, we got the answer. Just about six months after going live, TBD was “MySpaced.” Staff halved. It went from new media local news juggernaut to a limited effort focused on “entertainment and life styles.”

The reason given is that the revenue was not there. It was never allowed to function as designed, is the reply. You didn’t live up to what you promised. We were getting there in a hurry, no thanks to you… The truth… does it matter?

What is clear is that from the start there was an irreconcilable clash of culture between the WJLA news team and the newcomers that never happened when Politico was born. But that is because Politico was, and remains, such a different animal that the only conflict was over office space.

But TBD was meant to be the younger, faster, hipper local news team. If not intended as a threat, the old media team certainly wasn’t happy to share the toys. After all, TBD took over WJLA’s website. And it took over News Channel 8. And then it took even more of that already limited office space, squeezing in between Politico and WJLA. From before the formal launch, truly decent professionals on both sides expressed complete frustration with the other, both complaining of a lack of communication, lack of mutual support, and worse. Unfortunately it was no surprise. I have yet to see a newsroom where true harmony between legacy and new media is anything but a thin layer of wallpaper.

In the movie State of Play, the grizzled Washington veteran journalist and the vibrant onliner overcome initial animosity and mutual disrespect to break the big story together and forge an unbreakable professional bond. I do love fiction.

TBD RIP.

Undercover Dining


 

-The appointment was for 12:30 p.m. at a fairly new restaurant in Georgetown. The reservation was under the name of Fred, but the rendezvous was with Tom Sietsema, the Washington Post’s food critic. Depending on what he writes, Sietsema is either the most beloved or the most reviled man in the Washington restaurant universe.

Right on time, there’s a tap on my shoulder. “Hi, I’m Fred,” he says. “Nice to meet you.” Fred-slash-Sietsema is dashingly dressed, and not looking at all like a man who eats out 13 times a week. He is trim and fit, and not by accident.

“The day the Washington Post hired me, I hired a personal trainer to work me out three times a week. It is more a professional necessity than a personal indulgence,” he says. He also gives himself a break, sometimes skipping lunch on Saturday.

This lunch is one of what Sietsema calls his first takes, his first visit to a restaurant. He normally tests a restaurant at least three times before writing a review, believing anybody can have a bad day. But he also makes sure he sees restaurants at their worst and that is Monday, the slow day of the restauranting week. The dining room is virtually empty as we are led to our table.

In the 1990s Taiwanese movie, “Eat Drink Man Woman,” the best chef in the country has lost his ability to taste the food he cooks. I wondered the same of Sietsema. Can he still tell good food from bad? Doesn’t it get boring to eat out all the time? Like one of his reviews, which mixes considered praise with cutting criticism, his answer is a contradiction. He doesn’t get bored because “you have to love this to really do it well.” At the same time, “I eat mediocre food so you don’t have to.”

But when we pause to consider the menu, it is clear that familiarity hasn’t dulled Sietsema’s approach. At first glance watching him casually scanning the menu is like watching a rerun of “Colombo,” where you know the innocuous look around the room has revealed some hidden truth nobody else can see. But then as Sietsema continues to study the menu I realize I am actually watching a museum curator examining a newly found piece of the Dead Sea scrolls, relishing in the discovery of seeing something potentially wonderful for the first time.

Almost out of nowhere, a hyper-attentive waiter springs over to offer his advice and promote what he believes are the unique characteristics of some of the dishes. Sietsema orders. We order some of the recommendations but also a few “benchmark” dishes to check how the restaurant is on the basics.

It is said the best spies do not stand out. Sietsema has same low-key manner. But it becomes clear very quickly that this is not just a job most people would envy. To Sietsema, this is a sacred trust — keeping chefs honest, and serving the people. And despite the obvious thought that it would be fun to eat out all time, it is a job, “most food is generally somewhere in the middle. Some of it can be good, most just ok.” But he has to try it all.

It is a little ironic that in a town where power and perception are currency, one of its most powerful journalists doesn’t write about politics. There is no doubting Sietsema’s clout. When he wrote a wonderful review of an Indian restaurant newly opened in what had been a funeral plot for a number of restaurants that preceded it, it was suddenly impossible to get a table.

But when he dismissed the service at one of the most prominent restaurants in the city, taking away one of his impossibly hard-to-win stars, even people who couldn’t afford to eat there noticed.

“It’s the small mom and pop restaurants I feel most responsible towards,” he says. But it is not bad reviews
he worries about. He is concerned that if he gives a good review, small restaurants will be overwhelmed by a wave of expectant — and often disappointed — customers. He generally gives his smaller reviewees a heads up a few days before the review comes out.

I have a very personal relationship with food. But when the first course arrives I realize Sietsema is in a different class. As I dive into what promises to be a tasty appetizer, I realize he is just isn’t here to eat. He is here to taste. To experience. He seems to have an almost cold analytical relationship with what sits before him. Our adrenalined waiter reappears concerned because Sietsema has barely nibbled. Sietsema is ready with a disarming reason: “Saving space, big breakfast.” In reality, he has what he needs.

“Where I grew up all the food was beige,” Sietsema, raised in rural Minnesota, says. His mother was a great cook but there was no history of gastronomy in his family, although he fondly remembers occasional visits to the city where his dad would treat them to great restaurants. His arrival in Washington is the classic D.C. story. He spent a semester interning here during college, fell in love with the city and decided to stay. A professor had a contact at the Washington Post that landed his first job, which led to being assistant to the legendary restaurant reviewer Phyllis Richman. His main job was to try out the recipes (“That’s when I learned how to cook”). Stints followed in Milwaukee, San Francisco, Seattle (where he was food critic for Microsoft’s Sidewalk.com) before returning to take over at the Post. Today he is a virtual one-man industry with his biannual roundups, video blog (which was just a whimsy that seems to have taken off), and a seemingly never-ending stream of other writing. He makes at least one trip out of town a month to add variety.

The first bite of the main course proves as disappointing as the appetizers. Sietsema is clearly not impressed. He takes several more bites and puts down his fork.

This experience unfortunately is not uncommon. While D.C. has been growing as a food town, Sietsema says it is a growth more of quantity than quality. Both Georgetown and Downtown are becoming, he says somewhat dismissively, like Bethesda, where there are a lot of restaurants, but not many are really good. He believes the most exciting areas gastronomically in the city are the up and coming Logan Circle and H Street N.E. corridors.

Part of the problem, he says, is that too many chefs try to be too fancy. Sietsema could be the personification of the food critic in the animated movie Ratatouille. In the climax of that film, the legendary and feared critic is wowed by the simplest of dishes. For Sietsema, likewise, a simple burger or well made roast chicken will impress more than rich and ambitious sauces, which he says are like a crutch.

Dessert is offered, promoted, encouraged. A house speciality, nothing like it anywhere else. Sietsema listens attentively and as the waiter heads off shares a glance to say he deserves effort points, if nothing else. Unfortunately, our waiter’s ardent proselytizing is once more undermined by the food. I suddenly realize Sietsema is going to have to endure this food at least twice more. Just as suddenly I am feeling slightly less envious.

When the bill comes, it raises another interesting question: how does he pay without revealing his undercover identity? And yet for a decade, Sietsema has been able to eat in anonymity. He credits eating with different people (the best part of the job, he says), 15 OpenTable restaurant reservation accounts and never calling from his office, since the prefix is identifiable as the Washington Post’s. On occasion he uses disguises, but he says they take over an hour to get right and he only does those rarely.

But there is still the point of paying. Cash is the obvious answer, but it turns out he also has a rather clever, but legal, credit card trick.

All the same, he has had some close calls, and he is certain he has been recognized by a waiter or two. But fortunately they tend to move on, he says. His biggest concern is leaving his dry cleaning, which has his name on the label.

As critic-for-a-lunch, I have assumed an air of authority and casually write off this restaurant. But Sietsema gently chides me. Everybody has a bad day, he reminds me. He reiterates a point made early in the meal that it is not just the food. People tend to be forgiving if the overall experience is good. He will be back, and I get the distinct impression there will be fresh chance to win those coveted but stingily awarded stars. But as Sietsema heads off, without a far more impressive second act, those stars are looking pretty dim.

That’s A Wrap: DC’s Film Festivals

May 23, 2011

On June 22 there will be a little taste of Kazakhstan in Washington. Perhaps a little Korea or India better suits your taste? If you are looking for something a little rushed, there is a 48 Hour challenge, or if you just have a few minutes, some DC Shorts.

For those in the know, these don’t refer to restaurants or urban athletics but an underappreciated trend in the cultural life of our city. While nobody was watching, except for those who attended them, Washington has become something of a film festival mecca.

Each year, according to Jon Gann, organizer of the seven-year-old DC Shorts — in which all entries have to be under 10 minutes — there are approximately 75 film festivals in the D.C. area. Nobody seems to quite know many exactly because there are new ones all the time. “I get calls every week from someone saying, “I want to start a film festival. How do I do it?” He credits the cheap accessibility of technology, film schools pumping out people on a mission to make their great opus, and a thirst for something other than the latest canned Hollywood profit enterprise.

And it is not just film festivals. There are regular screenings and documentary award gatherings like the CINE Awards, Emmys, and Kennedy Center Honors awards. Perhaps the most prestigious U.S. documentary festival, Silverdocs, takes place in Silver Spring each summer, and the world’s largest documentary conference, RealScreen, takes over a downtown hotel each spring.

And all this in a town that traditionally “frowns on people who wear black,” jokes Lauren Cardillo, an independent film maker and one of the folks behind the CINE Awards. Award-winning documentary makers Sean and Andrea Nix Fine (Sundance-winning “War Dance”) see it as the difference between watching a movie at home and going to the film screening — where the audience has a richer experience and the ability to interact with the moviemakers themselves. “For us it is also an amazing experience to watch people react to our work.”

Susan Barocas, who heads the DCJCC’s 16-year-old Jewish Film Festival, which had 60 films last year, also says it provides an alternative route to get movies seen as the distribution network has consolidated, squeezing out the small filmmaker.

Credit is due to National Geographic and Discovery, which about two decades ago laid the foundation to make D.C. a hive for independent filmmakers. Yet, to quote comedian Rodney Dangerfield, we still get no respect when it comes to filmmaking, even though D.C. is closing in rapidly on L.A. and New York in festival stature.

Filmmaker Sean Fine says that when he is asked at festivals elsewhere where he is from, people seem reluctant to believe that D.C. could be a hub for filmmakers. But if L.A. has its Hollywood, and New York its Tribeca, DC has its Potomac, and these days lots of great little movies run through it.

The next time you see an eclectic mob strolling out of an embassy wearing a pensive smile, nod knowingly. Or wait for the next showing — another film is likely already being cued up.

Don’t miss these festivals coming up in Washington:

DC Shorts festival (September 9-16) — www.dcshorts.com
Truly independent short films, created by new and established filmmakers with a special focus on films by Washington D.C.-based directors and writers.

ReelAffirmations (October 14-23) — www.reelaffirmations.org
Films focusing on the GLBTQ experience.

Arabian Sights Film Festival (October 9-18) — www.filmfestdc.org/arabiansights
Offering the newest and most provocative films from the Arab world (an offshoot of the D.C. International Film Festival).

Washington Jewish Film Festival (December 2-12) — www.wjff.org
New and award-winning films from around the world, telling unexpected stories on the Jewish experience and debunking stereotypes.

Capital Irish Film Festival (December 2-12) — www.irishfilmdc.org
Featuring the work of contemporary Irish directors. Produced by Solas Nua.

Amos Gelb is the director for the George Washington University’s Semester in Washington Journalism program. Contact him at gelb@gwu.edu.
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Mr. Potter Goes to Washington

January 13, 2011

Friday, November 19. 12:02 a.m.

Harry! Harry! Harry!

Yes, for those of you who missed it somehow amid minor distractions like the persistently faltering economy, overpriced coffee, and the possible end of your mortgage deduction, last night at exactly 12:01 a.m., the last but one installment of the Harry Potter blockbuster-novel-turned-blockbuster- movie franchise hit all 14 screens at the Georgetown Loews Cineplex.

Well, to be exact, it hit at 12:19 because there are 18 minutes of previews at the start of the two hour and 40 minute runtime.

“All Things Media” couldn’t let the biggest media happening of the year happen without some kind of… thing.

So filing this under the “we stayed up so you didn’t have to” (with apologies for malaproping the Post’s tv columnist’s favorite line), the entire staff of All Things Media gallantly waded into the crowds lining K Street under the Whitehurst Freeway.

It was to be mayhem. Dancing in the street. Quiddich on K. I unfortunately am young enough to remember the original Rocky Horror Picture Show. And to have at least seen the footage of the Beatles at Shea Stadium.

So there was to be pandemonium at 11:30 between Wisconsin and 31.

Nope. Nothing. No crowds. No dancing. No broomsticks.

“Sorry, we started letting them in around 8:30, said a cinema employee, let’s call him “Mr. we can’t speak officially, you will have call headquarters No. 1.”

“It would have been too much. 3,000 people in 14 screens. And we have another showing at 3.30am.” How is that one doing, I asked. “Just sold out one, got another filling and we will keep opening as they come.”

But what about the dancing in the street? the crowds? My story?

“Sorry. They started lining up around 5:30pm.” said No.1, “But you are welcome to hang out if you want. This is about as much mayhem as we will get.”

Mayhem indeed ensued. It is tough to keep a large popcorn and two sodas balanced when someone eight inches shorter than you is drawing a mascara Potter scar on your forehead. There was indeed one sighting of a broom and a dressing gown, but the lone wearer looked like he was regretting his one-man effort to get into the spirit.

“The biggest issue for us is keeping up with the popcorn,” said “Mr. we can’t speak officially, you will have call headquarters No. 2.”, before trying to defer my questions to higher authority.

Now, if you had some house elves…problem solved.

Instead it was just college kids, a smattering of high schoolers and one or two adults who were bringing the ones they did not trust out alone. All far too orderly. Something of which the minister of magic would have approved (for those unread of All Things Potter, that is not a good thing).

Upon leaving, there was one last glimmer of hope. Or ember, I should say. Two college students were smoking on a bench as time wore down to H-Hour (as in Harry Hour). Were they so determined to get into the spirit that they came without tickets just to be there?

“Nah. We are about to head in. Didn’t feel like fighting the crowds.”

Reading Tea Leaves at TBD


The announcement of Jim Brady’s departure from TBD is not just the old “different direction” story. It is akin to Roger Ailes leaving FOX, Aaron Sorkin leaving the West Wing, or Steve Jobs leaving Apple. TBD, Brady’s visionary idea for the next great media thing, was a truly online local news organization that leveraged all those much-ballyhooed elements of new media — blogs, linking, social media etc. It really was a different concept.

Brady was not just the head of TBD but its guiding light. Previously the online editor for the Washington Post, he made his reputation by nurturing the old media dinosaur into a viable new media incarnation but moved on when new management took a left instead of the right he was trying to steer. Brady is an unrecognized pioneer of modern media.

Then Robert Albritton, backer of Politico and arguably the most imaginative and inventive media executive working in the American media business, had the foresight and brilliance to buy into Brady’s idea for TBD about two years ago, putting his money where everybody else’s mouth is.

So here is what rings hollow about Brady’s departure. Brady was said to be a technology guy, while Albritton wanted to focus on content generation.

But Brady actually is that rarest of beings: the content guy who is equally as comfortable with its technology. Was it simply a personality conflict, a financial equation, or Albritton’s looking for a right when Brady was going left? Was it literally a rejection of Brady’s vision by the paymaster? It’s all possible
and just business.

But I would suggest that this is now a critical moment for the new TBD idea, which was a truly new concept in online-driven, locally focused journalism in a sustainable form. Just as Politico is the personification
of its leaders John Harris and Jim VandeHei, TBD was Jim Brady. Albritton seems more than committed to growing his newest adventure, but TBD runs the risk of so many other new media incarnations today: To start with a promise and an idea but evolve into something not much different from traditional legacy media, just with fewer unions for bosses to worry about.