SPJ Austin Jobs Board

WRITERS WANTED
ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE

Rolling Stone Magazine is looking for a group of talented writers
between the ages of 18 -24 to work for the summer in its New York
offices as FULL-TIME STAFF WRITERS. Your experiences will be filmed
for an MTV series exploring the exciting world of journalism.

Whether your specialty is music, film, sports, fashion or politics,
whether you're a working journalist, the star of your school paper, a
blogger, or simply out to prove what it takes to fulfill your dream,
we want to hear from you!

At the end of the summer, one outstanding writer will be chosen to
receive a ONE-YEAR CONTRACT as a Contributing Writer to the magazine.


Go to www.rollingstone.com, www.mtv.com or call (310) 752-8740 now
for application instructions and eligibility requirements.

You must be at least 18 years of age by June 9, 2006 to be eligible to
apply.

Company: Austin American-Statesman

Contact : Cassandra Scott, Director of Information Service
Email resumes to cscott@statesman.com

Phone: 512-445-3876

Job Title: Part-time Editorial Assistant

Job Location: Austin, Texas

Salary: $12 hourly

Schedule: Thursday - Saturday, 6 p.m. 1 a.m.

Job Description: Editorial Assistants provide editorial support to supervising and specialty editors in various newsroom departments which include metro, state, business and. This support includes answering telephones and accurately routing calls; collecting, sorting and delivering FAX material; handling standard mail and email correspondence; preparing daily story budgets and making this budget material available to other Cox newspapers and other publishing partners. It also includes gathering information from a variety of sources, preparing stories published in the
daily newspapers to be posted to the Statesman website, verifying the accuracy of the information and synthesizing the verified material into publishable lists, calendars and briefs. Other responsibilities may include preparing the Weather Page and the financial markets pages.

Job requirements:
Willingness to work flexible hours that may include nights, weekends and holidays.
Ability to work at least 21 hours a week with the flexibility of working more hours
Daily reader of the Austin American-Statesman.
Excellent phone manner in dealing with public.
Interest in working in a newsroom setting.
Ability to work well under deadline pressure.
Ability to work effectively with the public.
Able to prioritize multiple duties and work with a minimum of supervision.
Ability to adapt quickly and effectively to changing priorities and environment.
Ability to communicate effectively with all levels of personnel and outside contacts.
Experience working in office setting.
Some experience with Macintosh computers and standard business applications.
A strong interest in learning about newspaper journalism

SPJ and the Lewis family present the Robert D.G. Lewis First Amendment Award to a student member of SPJ who has demonstrated outstanding service to the First Amendment through the field of journalism. The $500 cash award must be used toward attending the 2006 SPJ Convention and National Journalism Conference in Chicago, August 24-27, 2006.

Application deadline: May 1, 2006

To apply, students should send a letter of interest, documenting their service to the First Amendment, as well as any other documentation that helps to illustrate their service. A one-page biography, resume and three letters of recommendation must also be included. Only SPJ student members of are eligible for this award.

All information should be mailed to:

Society of Professional Journalists
Lewis First Amendment Award
3909 North Meridian St.
Indianapolis, IN 46208

This award was created to honor Robert Lewis, SPJ President 1985-86, National FOI Chairman 1978-83 and Wells Key Recipient 1980.

For additional information, contact Heather Porter, programs coordinator, at hporter@spj.org or 317/927-8000 ext. 204.

I received this job listing in an email from the Institute of Humane Studies.

JOBS AT NEWSPAPERS
Reporter - McAllen Monitor, McAllen, TX.

Business Reporter - Capitol City Press, Baton Rouge, LA.

Reporter - Dow Jones & Company, Jersey City, NJ.

Reporter - Eagle Tribune Publishing Co, North Andover, MA.

Reporter - New Bern Sun Journal, New Bern, NC - This reporter will primarily
cover education, but will cover a variety of events and issues in a
three-county area. The New Bern Sun Journal is an 18,000-circulation newspaper
in eastern North Carolina, 30 minutes from the beach and in the center of the
historic Colonial capital of North Carolina. E-mail Mark McKillop at
mmckillop@freedomenc.com with resume, cover letter and clips.

Reporter - Connection Newspapers, McLean, VA - Connection Newspapers, a group of
17 award-winning weeklies in the suburbs of Washington, DC, seek two energetic,
prolific reporters.

Reporter - The Winchester Star, Winchester, VA.

Sports Reporter/Page Designer - The Daily Press, Victorville, CA.

Copy Editor - The Sun, Yuma, AZ.

General Assignment Reporter - The Northwest Florida Daily News, Destin, FL.

Reporter - The Walton Sun, Fort Walton, FL.

Copy Editor - Northwest Florida Daily News, Fort Walton Beach, FL.

Reporter - The Gazette, Colorado Springs, CO.

The SPJ newsletter talked about a new campaign, Report it now.. If you click Tell your local media to Report it Now! it automatically pulls up all the local news organizations in your area. You can email a form letter, edit the form, or paste your own message. I agree with the form-letter message:

Restore the public trust in your news coverage

I am deeply concerned with the current state of the news media and with the quality of your news coverage. Information is the lifeblood of democracy. We depend on our media to provide us with what we need to know, so that we can make informed decisions about the things that affect our lives.

Over the past several years, I’ve seen you devote plenty of time to whatever is the latest celebrity scandal or sensationalized missing persons case. Coverage of these stories may be good for ratings or advertising dollars, but they have absolutely no impact on our lives, and they obscure the real issues that are crucial to our families and our communities.

The press should use its power to uncover things that are important and new and that change community thinking. You should not squander this constitutional freedom on pseudo scandals that research shows may build an audience or on one-sided reporting.

Instead, the stories you report should answer our needs as citizens, not just the interests of insiders, or the political or economic system. Your news coverage should monitor all the key centers of power in the community – including but not limited to government – and ask the questions that are key to uncovering the truth.

It’s time to restore the public trust in your news coverage through accurate and impartial reporting.

Big perk for the future president of SPJ at UT-Austin: You get to go to this.

SPJ’s Ted Scripps Leadership Institute is coming up in June. This is a wonderful opportunity for people to learn more about us and to feel inspired in their role as chapter leaders. Start thinking now about the folks you’d like to see your chapter nominate for this (almost) all-expenses-paid trip to Indianapolis. Want to know more? Contact Heather Porter at hporter@spj.org.

You've probably seen this in the weekly enewsletter from national...but, just in case:

A FEW COOL GIGS. SPJ is currently accepting applications for summer internships in Indianapolis and Washington, D.C. Two students will be selected for the Pulliam-Kilgore Freedom of Information internships and another opportunity is available in Indianapolis for the Archibald Communications intern. Application deadlines are March 15. Here's more information about Summer internships at SPJ.

I've just been notified by Lisa Hurd Walker with gather.com that I made an error in a previous post about a citizen journalism scholarship.

Here's Lisa's message:

"First I wanted to thank you for posting the announcement about our student journalism contest on Gather.com. There is one slight correction I wanted to mention which is that the number of internships we will be offering at The Huffington Post is actually 4 in total (2 grads, 2 undergrads including scholarship winners), not 10 as posted on your 3/2/06 entry. If it’s not to much trouble to change it, we would really appreciate it. Again, thanks so much for the contest mention and I look forward to seeing lots of entries from UT-Austin."

I also sincerely hope there's lots of UT-Austin entrys!

So, the SPJ officers met today to talk about upcoming plans. Ain't we perty?
From left to right: Qianqian, Hasti, Jacob, Juhi, Amina, Mindy and Angela.

Hey everyone! I noticed some really good journalism jobs listed in the CCS job and internship listing this week. Check them out! If you don't get those emails, feel free to email me or leave a comment here and I'll forward it to you.

This message is from Kendra Newton, president of Ed on Campus.

As many of you know, Tuesday, March 7 is Journalism Day as part of Comm Council's College of Communication Week. We will have a photojournalism exhibit. We need more photos for this exhibit, so if you have any photography work that you would like to
display, please bring it to the CMA lobby at 9 a.m. on Tuesday morning. We will provide easels and a projection screen for those of you that would like to display either slides or digital images. The work will be available to pick up at 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon. For everyone who does not have photography to display, please come to the CMA lobby for refreshments and to enjoy the exhibit.

Please contact me for any further questions, oops12@aol.com.

Contact: Drew Marcks, Austin American-Statesman, dmarcks@statesman.com


Separately from the editorial assistant positions, we have an opportunity for a freelancer to cover the Round Rock Express for us. We had arrangements in place for this season that collapsed on Friday. This position requires travel to spring training in March and coverage of all 72 home games through August. In addition, there are takeouts to be done. This is a gem for a young reporter/ writer who has knowledge of baseball and is willing to work hard. It is not for the faint of heart.