The 8 Truths of Journalism Today: Surviving in a Constantly Changing Media Environment
7 pm, Wednesday, February 19
Cowles Library Reading Room
Two Drake SJMC grads (’06) talk about link baits, new media rules, audience engagement, editors who don’t edit, and weathering instability.
Tanner Stransky, senior editor at HBO Digital & Social Media.
Rachel DeSchepper, director of digital content at AllYou.com.
Bios:
Tanner Stransky, is senior editor at HBO Digital & Social Media. where he oversees network editorial rollouts around shows from Looking and Boardwalk Empire to Girls. He previously worked at Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, rising from editorial assistant to staff editor (and pinging from NYC to LA and back toNYC) over a seven year stint. Tanner still hosts a weekly radio show, Bullseye Hour, on EW’s Sirius radio channel. In May 2008, he published an entertainment-pegged career-advice book, Find Your Inner Ugly Betty: 25 Career Lessons for Young Professionals Inspired by TV Shows, through Kaplan. Tanner was Ed on Campus Director with Ed2010 for four years and previously worked at Teen People, the New York Post, andON DIRECTV. He graduated from Drake in 2006.
Rachel DeSchepper is the director of digital content at AllYou.com where she oversees site strategy and content development. She was previously the senior web editor at CountryLiving.com, and the web editor at FreshHomeideas.com and RachaelRaymag.com. (There was a brief stint in Portland, Oregon, somewhere in there, too.) She started her career in Des Moines at Country Home magazine,after graduating from Drake in 2006. She’s originally from Overland Park, Kansas, and currently lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
“Truths” they will discuss, for background:
1. Truth: Magazines are now brands. They encompass events, products, websites, and more.
2. Truth: The purpose of magazine’s websites need to evolve.
3. Truth: We are closer to our audiences than we’ve ever been, for better or for worse.
4. Truth: Right now, web content is determined by metrics and link bait.)
5. Truth: Native advertising is chipping away at pure traditional advertising and journalism.
6. Truth: Successful editors don’t edit.
7. Truth: But you still have to know the rules of journalism.
8. Truth: There will be no comfortable “stable” period ever again.
Free and open to the public.
Sponsored by the E.T. Meredith Center for Magazine Studies