Texas Monthly

Paul Burka and Eileen Smith of Texas Monthly magazine spoke on Wednesday of last week about the importance of multimedia production knowledge in journalism today.

The two editors were at Texas State as a part of Mass Comm. week, and offered information on how to get a leg up in the working world of modern journalism.

Paul Burka, Senior Executive Editor of Texas Monthly and writer of the Burkablog, was very adamant about the advantages of blogging versus a monthly magazine.

"When you know something, you want to get it out," Burka says, and the timeliness of a blog cannot be matched in a magazine or even a newspaper.

Eileen Smith, editor of Texas Monthly's Web site, says that for getting a job and being successful as a journalist, "you need to be able to do everything." She is referring to writing blogs, twitter, producing video and audio content, podcasts, and all other forms of getting connected. Being able to be an all-around journalist and producer is important.

One student clearly connected is graduate student Maira Garcia. As she was listening to the speakers, she was twittering about them. She says that twittering is, "kind of an addiction."

Both Burka and Smith agree that it is hard to make money from the Internet. Burka says that, "you have to work twice as much for the same pay," and Smith says that advertisements can only take you so far.

Although these are both issues, the pay off of bringing your knowledge and opinion to the masses is greater in electronic form. Burka refers to the Net as, "our town-hall meeting of the day."

Smith believes that more information from more places is better than from only a few networks. The more opinions, the more people have to think about.

The advice from Paul was to have opinions and be critical of the world around you. He says, "If you don't have that sort of obnoxious quality, then you're in the wrong business."


http://www.texasmonthly.com/
http://www.texasmonthly.com/blogs/burkablog/index.php