St. Louis Post-Dispatch seeks social media intern

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch is looking for an intern, but not just any intern. The position announcement calls for a "social media intern."

Kurt Greenbaum, director of social media at the Post-Dispatch, posted the position on his blog Wednesday, noting that the intern will work with the online team to use "social media to publish content, engage our audience and encourage reader-generated news, photos, videos and more."

"This person," Greenbaum writes, "will help update, promote and publicize our fledgling social networking site, MySTLtoday; help develop and participate in blogs; increase our profile on external social networks such as Digg, Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube and more; help integrate reader-generated content into our primary site, STLtoday.com; and help develop training for newsroom colleagues on the power and function of social media."

The 13-week spring internship will run from late February to mid-May. The news organization is seeking applicants in their junior year of college or higher.

Qualifications?

"To apply, you’ll need to demonstrate first that you’re a solid journalist, with good writing skills and sound news judgment. Second, show us you’re engaged in social networks. Do you blog? Twitter? Post YouTube videos? Other sites? How have you used your presence in social networks to advance your life — personally or professionally?"

Submit a resume, a portfolio of your journalism and a 500-word essay describing why social media is a vital tool for journalists and ways they should embrace it. Applications must be postmarked by Dec. 12; send it to Kurt Greenbaum, c/o St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 900 N. Tucker Blvd., St. Louis, Mo., 63101 or email it to Greenbaum at kgreenbaum@post-dispatch.com.

Frankly, if I was 20-something and wanted to work in journalism this century, I'd grab at this opportunity. It sounds like a great chance to not only learn some cutting-edge tools but to contribute to a newsroom that's looking for new ideas. This sounds like the kind of internship a sharp, media-savvy student could parley into a full-time job, either at the Post-Dispatch or elsewhere.

The Next Newsroom Project completes plan

Chris O'Brien of The Next Newsroom Project reports that the board of The Chronicle, the independent, student-run newspaper at Duke University, has adopted the project's proposal for a new newsroom.

The plan is available here.

O'Brien, a business reporter at the San Jose Mercury News and Duke Chronicle alum, has served as the project manager for the endeavor. He reports that the concept approved by the Chronicle's board calls for:

• A newsroom for a fully-integrated, multimedia news organization.
  
• Adjacent space for a student media incubator.
  
• The newsroom would be set in a larger media center, presumably shared by other student and academic groups.
  
• A central location so the new building will be at the crossroads of campus life

The plan is the culmination of 18 months of work with support from a News Challenge grant from the Knight Foundation. O'Brien has chronicled the work on his blog with hopes of sharing knowledge with other student and professional media organizations.

Journalism student names top 10 sites

Emily Kostic, a junior studying journalism at Rowan University, has put together a list of Top 10 Sites for Online Journalism Students on her blog, Journalism 3.0: The Future of Journalism According to a Member of the Facebook Generation.

I echo many of her suggestions for sites every journalism student should read. Check it out.

Kostic's blog itself is a good read for journalism students -- and a model for the kind of online reflection students should be engaging in. Recent posts include an interactive map showing where journalists have been killed this year, her thoughts on discrimination against online journalists and an interview with Danish journalists Poul Madsen and Henri Kastenskov of the Bombay Flying Club, an innovative production house that creates flash documentaries for the Web.

I love to see journalism students using blogs to share their thoughts about this changing field. I bet this kind of blog will help Kostic land a job as much as -- or even more than -- a traditional internship. It demonstrates to the world that she's reading about, observing, thinking about and commenting on the field. It also shows that she's acquainting herself with new technology. Good work, Emily Kostic.

ACP creates gallery of post-election newspapers

Marc Wood of Associated Collegiate Press has put up a gallery of post-election college newspaper front pages. You can also view it as a slideshow.

If you want to add your newspaper's Page 1 to the gallery, you can upload it here or email Wood at wood (at) studentpress.org.

College papers overwhelmingly favor Obama

Barack Obama has garnered more than twice as many daily newspaper endorsements as John McCain, according to Editor and Publisher. But the results are even more lopsided for college newspapers: 65 to 1.

Of the 66 college newspapers counted in the E&P tally, only one -- The Daily Mississippian at the University of Mississippi -- endorsed McCain.

In its Oct. 28 endorsement, The Daily Mississippian agrees with McCain's argument that he is the more experienced of the two candidates.

"We feel Sen. McCain’s experience in foreign affairs and his decision to not raise taxes on anyone of any class of society makes him the clear choice for president," the editors write. "Sen. McCain has a history of stepping across party lines; the same cannot be said of Sen. Obama."

The editorial notes that the five editors on the editorial board were split on the decision.

The pro-McCain editorial was the most read story on The Daily Mississippian's Web site last week. At last count, 31 people had commented on it, offering a range of opinions.

Among the red-state college papers that endorsed Obama are The Louisville Cardinal at the University of Louisville, The Daily Gamecock at the University of South Carolina, the Daily Texan at the University of Texas-Austin, the Oklahoma Daily at the University of Oklahoma and The Optimist at Abeline Christian University. The Arizona Daily Wildcat at the University of Arizona, McCain's home state, also came out for Obama.

For a list of college newspaper endorsements, scroll down to the bottom of this article on E&P.