Melanie Sommer, Online News Editor for Minnesota Public Radio |
| University of Iowa - Gender Studies and Media | |||
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Alexandra Schroeder: When and why did you become involved in journalism, and more specifically online journalism? MS: I have been a working journalist my entire career. My first job was an internship at a radio station in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, when I was a junior in college, which involved covering local news events and occasionally anchoring newscasts. After graduating in 1981, I worked at commercial radio stations in Duluth, Minnesota and in Eau Claire until 1987. Those jobs essentially involved the same sort of duties; reporting on local events and anchoring newscasts. I began working in public radio in 1987, when I took a job at Wisconsin Public Radio in Madison, primarily as a news anchor, with some reporting duties. I gradually took on various supervisory duties there, and became news director in 1993. My job was to make story assignments, edit copy, and supervise a staff of approximately 15 people, while continuing to anchor the morning news. In 1995, I became a newsroom manager at Minnesota Public Radio, primarily supervising the newsroom staff and assisting the news director with editorial and strategic planning. MPR launched its Web site in 1996, with a very small staff and very small ambitions. In its beginning, it was not thought of as a news site – it was primarily a marketing tool for MPR programming. In 1998, the company hired its first online news editor, with a goal of beefing up the news content on the site and eventually providing our audience with regular news content. In 2000, I was hired as the second online news editor. Our online news staff remained at 2 full-time people for several years, until MPR decided to invest more resources into the Web. We now have six full-time and one part-time online employees, as well as two interns. I decided way back in college to pursue a journalism career because I believe the profession provides a public service as an important part of a democratic society, to inform citizens of what’s going on around them so they can be as involved as they wish to be in public debate.
AS: How do you balance family life with your journalism career? MS: It can be difficult at times to achieve that balance. My husband and I have three daughters. The two oldest are now in college, and the youngest is in elementary school. When the first two were very young, I was working the early morning drive time shift at Wisconsin Public Radio, and my husband was responsible for getting the girls to day care every day. His job occasionally called for overnight travel, which was extremely difficult for us to accommodate because of my schedule. There were several times during those years when my baby daughters would be sleeping on a blanket right outside my studio door at 5 a.m.! At MPR, I have been fortunate to be able to work fairly regular hours – generally 9am-5pm, and few weekend obligations. But when there is a breaking news event, such as the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks or a plane crash, all bets are off and most of our staff is expected to work as long as necessary to cover the story. Sometimes that conflicts with family time or family events. One example I remember clearly is in October 2002, when U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone was killed in a small plane crash just two weeks before the election. I had been planning to go camping that weekend with one of my daughter’s Girl Scout troop, but had to cancel on her. She was disappointed, of course, and so was I. My current role as managing editor of online news means I’m now responsible for the entire regional news Web site at MPR, and that means I’m also working more hours. I’m writing this document on a Sunday night, and have spent most of my weekend posting stories. This doesn’t happen every weekend, but it is a common occurrence. It just eats into your family time if you do not manage your time well. I will also say that MPR, and Wisconsin Public Radio for that matter, are very supportive of their employees with families, in terms of being flexible with family leave time, flexible scheduling, and allowing employees to work from home.
AS: Do you have opinions or a certain view on online blogging and online journalism? MS: I have several. First off, I don’t believe that blogging and journalism are the same thing. Successful bloggers don’t just recite a list of links or facts, they are based on personality. If the writer brings his or her personality to their work, it makes it more valuable, I believe. I believe that the general tenets and ethics of journalism hold true for online presentation as well. Online journalism is no different in terms of the standards it must uphold. At MPR, our goal for our Web site is not only to provide an archive of the reporting that was presented on our radio service, but to provide background, context and an opportunity for audience interaction that cannot be presented on the air due to time and format constraints. Our job is to supplement and augment the reporting that is already being done by our radio reporters. We also have a robust audience interaction element to our site, which allows people to email comments, photos and questions, and help us cover the stories in their communities better.
AS: Have you ever experienced any gender issues in online journalism or your career in general? MS: Early on in my career, during my college internship, I worked for a station manager who was disrespectful toward most female employees at the station. Since I was a new and inexperienced employee, I sometimes made mistakes. And when I did, he would often attribute it to my being a woman. But other than that, I have been treated professionally and respectfully by the supervisors I have worked for – both male and female.
AS: Did you find any obstacles in moving into online journalism? MS: When I began working on MPR’s Web site, the whole thing was still very new, and I had virtually no knowledge of the technology and the coding that was necessary to put together a web page. Fortunately, the person who hired me was not concerned about that – he was more concerned about my editorial judgment. He taught me the technical skills I needed. The technology changes so rapidly that sometimes it’s hard to keep up with the new programs, systems, etc. that are on the horizon. We have a group of very capable technology folks and Web producers whose job it is to worry about that aspect of the operation, so our staff can worry about the actual content.
AS: In your personal experience do woman have obstacles in online journalism, or is the field neutral for the most part? MS: In my experience, this has not been the case. We at MPR have hired men and women in fairly equal numbers for online jobs, from editorial to production to technical to design positions.
AS: What do you think students need to learn in order to find careers in web journalism? MS: First and foremost, they need to be good journalists – with strong news judgment, good writing skills and the ability to tell a good story. Next, I think they need to have a sense of how to tell a story on the Web – to know what kinds of tools might work best to present the material, whether it be great photos, a video, an interactive graphic, a map, a call for audience participation, etc. I think it’s helpful for them to have a good sense of the technology involved in how to produce web sites and their content, but the level of skill depends on what kind of job they’re looking for. In any case, they need to be comfortable working with technology, even if they don’t have intimate knowledge of a particular program.
AS: How do you view the future of online journalism? MS: That’s a hard question to answer, since the online world is still in its early stages and is changing constantly. I would hope that there will still be a demand for strong, reputable news reporting sites like MPR and other established journalism entities, as people want to have a source they can trust amidst the opinion-oriented blogs and other junk that swirls around in cyberspace. Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are making news reporting even more immediate and even more individualized, so it’s important for journalists to figure out how to work within those parameters. I believe that we need to deliver our content increasingly for audiences who want to pick and choose the topics they’re interested in, and find ways to send that content to them. In a few years, it’s highly likely that the majority of online news will be consumed on mobile devices, and that will have a huge impact on how we produce our online news content.
Interviewee: Melanie Sommer
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