The U-Wire Top 100 Young Journalists

Another way to view this could be that because these people were nominated, THEN selected, maybe it's a shame that there aren't more minority reporters out there. I do find it odd that in my military J-school class, and at three Navy newspapers and two civilian newspapers, I've seen exactly two African-Americans and one Asian. That's not exactly a clear representation of society.

Not blaming the staffs for not hiring. Maybe, just maybe, there simply aren't enough minorities in the business, period.

 

His top story linked in his bio is fantastic. Put away your jump to conclusions mat.

 

That would've been me. I sure as hell wouldn't have gotten nominated by my school for anything.

 

Me neither. I turned down the sports editor job at the college paper to work part-time for the city paper.

Best decision I ever made.

 

That story was outstanding until the final two paragraphs.

 

The box is the usual campus dailies and big J-schools.

 

Hold it, hold it, hold it. I get this post, and then Frank comes in and knocks it as a recruiting list. So hold it.

Whatever else is thought of me, and I've made my share of dumb or out-of-left-field posts, I'm reasonably sure that I'm not considered a complete nitwit here.

So, I'm pretty sure that I will be believed when I say, "Look, it's a list of names that might provide a lead to a hire down the road. It's not like I'm going to send out a job offer letter based on seeing a name here."

OK? It's a list of college kids who have distinguished themselves enough, at least in somebody's eyes, to be singled out for their accomplishments in college. And since none of us have a list of every college graduate and what their fields of interest were in the news business, it's a tool providing some names. Nothing more -- or less.

Again, OK?

 

I'm a reader of one of the members of the list and I'm not going to go as far as saying he/she doesn't belong, but there are a lot of other young writers that I've consistently read who are consistently better.

To use this as a recruiting tool would just be a way to help the rich get richer. Although, that may be a terrible analogy considering these folks are going to be journalists.

Anyway, another poster wrote this is a great thing because we need new faces. I don't know. I think we have enough faces. Isn't that one of the problems. Aren't there enough really good journalists who are out of work now? How are new faces going to help this. There are also a lot of other really good young faces that are out of work or working in different industries because of this.

Okay end of rant.

 

21, I'm grouping your post and Frank's post together because I think he makes an additional point I wanted to make, and he makes it far more eloquently that I could. In addition to my point about backscratching/stargazing nature of these kind of lists, how exactly are we determining where we pick who ends up on the list? What good old boy network of incestuous newspaper editors/college professors can truly say who is one of the top 100 college journos in the country? Awhile ago, back when we were having our debate about grad school and such, I posted the list of all the writers I truly like and admire and where they went to school to shoot down the notion that you have to go to a Journalism School Powerhouse to BE SOMEBODY in our business. I think that's more true now than ever, especially with the rise of non-traditional media outlets. You just have to be good, ambitious, upwardly mobile, and care about the craft and you'll be discovered eventually.

As to my original point, maybe the praise is good. Maybe it encourages some of them to stay in the business who might otherwise get out early for a more lucrative career. Maybe. I do think, at least lately, there is some truth to the saying that the best way to ruin a young writer is to give him or her a prize. I think you're looking at this from the perspective of someone wiser and with more experience, and I'm telling you that the reality of my generation is we obsess far too much over one another (you can really see this mentality emerging in the on-line media world) and I say this at the same time acknowledging, honestly, it's a character flaw I identify in my own perspective on the business. Not to dump on Mizzou, but it's the 'effing stud mentality. There is some value in it, sure, but I've grown increasingly weary of it. I see a number of people who are very good at journalism, but less so at the subtle art of self-promotion. And while I acknowledge that this is part of our business, it disheartens me more and more each year.

 

Besides the consistent use of contractions for he has that annoys me: "June's realized," etc. , that was a fantastic story. Proud to see a college kid getting that kind of access and doing something with it. I'd hire him.

 

DDown: I have to make a list or I'll forget everything I want to say:

1. If you're taking Frank, I'll take SF. It's a list...it's not definitive or accurate, just like the women in the Miss USA pageant aren't the 50 most beautiful women in America. Best restaurants, best places to live, best books of 2007, BASW....lists. Nice to be included, excellent for business, but next year, there'll just be another list.

2. The effin stud mentality isn't new; in every profession, there are always those hot shots whose names get out early and often. Sometimes the advanced publicity is self-fulfilling, sometimes it's a career death sentence, and I know it's the latter that has you perplexed. The best advice I ever got about being young and successful is if you don't get caught up in the praise, you're less likely to get caught up in the rips that inevitably follow.

3.

It's a part of every business. If you can't promote yourself in some way--or at the very least, advocate for yourself--you're probably going to be overlooked. I don't think that's unique to journalism.

Bottom line, those young men and women did something to get themselves noticed, and that's not a bad thing.