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.

Student editor responds to The Loop

Bill Kuchman, editor in chief of The Cardinal Courier at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, writes in response to our post about The Loop, a new Web site for college students in the Rochester, New York area launched by the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. Kuchman has been one of the students working on The Loop since the project began in May.

I'd like to address some of the concerns that you brought up on the Student Newspaper Survival Blog, as I feel that I'm in a unique position being the only staffer on The Loop who currently serves as a college newspaper editor in chief.

I was hired to be a part of the initial group of students to work on The Loop. From my over three months working there, I can assure other college newspapers that the content on the site (for the most part) won't infringe on the territory of college newspapers. Believe me, as an editor in chief myself, there was no way that I would let The Loop move in on what college newspapers cover.

When you look at the stories on The Loop, you'll see that they bring in a wider audience and write about issues from a Rochester standpoint, instead of just a singular campus standpoint. For example, if St. John Fisher College's president were to resign, the Courier would cover it as just a news event from Fisher's campus. The Loop would bring in issues involving other campus presidents and recent changes in administrations. This is something that as a college newspaper, we don't have the resources to do, and frankly, isn't what our readership is interested in.

When it comes to staff, I am confident that this issue will resolve itself over time. Fisher's student on The Loop for the fall isn't even a member of the Courier. We at the Courier also have rules and guidelines built into our staff requirements and ethics policy regarding conflict of interest. If the issue of a member of our senior staff taking a job at The Loop were to arise, this is something that we'd address based on these policies. I cannot speak for other papers, but I am highly confident that the Courier has the experience and the understanding of proper journalistic boundaries that will be sufficient to guide us when working with The Loop.

In terms of advertising, we haven't suffered any loss of sponsors - we actually continue to add new accounts. Many of our advertisers have been with us for several years and understand the effectiveness of advertising in a college newspaper, especially a proven product like the Cardinal Courier.

I hope that this will resolve some of the concerns in regards to The Loop. If anyone would like to further discuss this issue with me, I'd be more than happy to talk to them.

--Bill

William R Kuchman
Cardinal Courier Media Executive Editor
Cardinal Courier Editor in Chief
Class of 2008
St. John Fisher College

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