Revoir- C'est maintenant (A Resurrection and Lesson in Branding)

Hello, blog world! I know it's been a long while. I must first apologize for that. I lost track of my account and just recently found the login information. Lucky for me, it was right after the Region 5 spring conference for the Society of Professional Journalists, something about which I wanted to blog.

There is much irony in this post. I wanted to blog about the biggest lesson I took away from the conference: YOU MUST BRAND YOURSELF.


Every session I attended talked about how best to sell yourself and how to use social media to most effectively create a following for yourself. Gone is the age of working for a brand, a masthead (a media outlet). Now, YOU are the brand.

I realized how true this has become for me. I am a self-proclaimed Joel Stein addict. If you don't know him, look up some of his writings. You'll know you've found him if it's sarcastic, ironic, Jewish and probably mentions either his wife Cassandra or his son Laszlo. Yes, Stein writes for Time magazine, one of my favorite weekly publications, but I don't read him because he writes for Time. I read him because he's funny; he's Stein. I'm subscribed to him on Facebook, and I follow him on Twitter. Even if he left Time or it went out of business (as often occurs in the media today), I'd still find him and read him.

I also realized how poor a job I've been doing of branding Rachel Manning. I met many students at the conference who had been producing radio newscasts or writing in-depth news series throughout college. One of the speakers said she had freelanced in college and had been published out of New York before even getting a diploma. I, on the other hand, barely have a YouTube presence after my Honors capstone and oversee a Twitter account with a measly 19 followers. It was after this epiphany that I knew I had to restart my blog.

I know it may be too little too late for me, but I titled this "Musings of a Young Journalist." It's perfect. I can still muse. My thoughts must have some value. I'm still young. I'm allowed to make mistakes. I'm still a journalist. I'll call it "doing story research...for several months." The SPJ Code of Ethics' first tenet is "Seek the truth and report it." I've been discovering many truths recently about the news industry, so I will continue to report them, and maybe, just maybe, someone even younger than myself can gain something from it. Maybe, just maybe I can save one amateur journalist from being as lost as I am and feeling as behind in the game of making a name and eventually making a career.

So, take a seat. Grab a pen and notebook (as if you didn't always carry those). And take note. Thank you.