Day Three
For today’s plan we started off at the New York Times and met Michael M. Grynbaum. He has worked as a media correspondent and reporter for four years. When he started, there weren’t that many people in their 20’s working as full time reporters. Now they strive for a more younger, diverse pool of applicants. Grynbaum talked about his experience with interviewing noting that there’s been an effort in past years to find ways to stay traditional while finding ways to make it conversational. “It’s the trickiest part of my job [….] I always try to size them up as a person” said Grynbaum. He also commented interviewing “like [being] a therapist for someone.” I thought it was an interesting take because it’s something that Greta from ABC 20/20 commented it about as well.
New York Times Visit Photos By: Doug Newberry
We also had the opportunity to learn about the Fellowship Program at the New York Times. After we met Grynbaum, we had a panel with people in various roles related to the program. We had the opportunity to meet Theodore (Ted) Kim the director of Newsroom Fellowship & Internships, Jazmin Aguilera an audio team Fellow, Mariel Padilla who graduated from Miami University in 2017 an Express Fellow and Phil Coffin who is an Miami Alum from ‘75 and a senior staff editor for the Flexible Editing Desk. It was interesting to see the growth of the program overall and what I learned from them is to put in the effort and be yourself within the job position because it will open more doors in the future.
Next on the agenda, we visited the Columbia Journalism Review with our guest speaker Kyle Pope who is the current CJR editor. He shared his experience and position about working in a unique position of being able to criticize and promote other people’s work. The word he pointed within his work ethic was encouragement. “That’s been my kind of super power” said Pope. That phrase stood out to me the most because it’s important to praise people for all the work that they’ve done and it’s a great quality to have as a writer and as a human being to empower people along the way. He encouraged us “to be prepared of how our words can be manipulated” said Pope. What I took away from that piece of advice is to be mindful and aware of what you’re putting out into the world now rather than later.
Columbia Journalism Review Visit Photo By: Doug Newberry
After we visited Columbia, we went to the Marshall Project. Susan Chira talked to us about the Marshall Project’s mission along with her role as Editor-in-Chief. She initially began her career as a writer in the New York Times and moved up as the Editor-in-Chief. She chose to express her interest in criminal justice because it’s something that can get overlooked. especially with situation revolving around incarceration. From her experience, what I took away from her discussion was “how you set a standard for excellent journalism” said Chira. It’s about how you write and who you are outside of the writing portion. I thought it was great how she mentioned that within a career path because I believe it’s important to have balance in life and I resonated with that phrase a lot.
Outside the Late Night Show with Stephen ColbertPhoto By: Mia Lee
Once we finished our company visits for the day, we headed off in our separate groups to watch the Daily Show with Trevor Noah and the Late Night Show with Stephen Colbert. This time, I saw the Late Night Show and this ended up being a great bonding experience with my group. We weren’t allowed to have phones out once we got seated. Our boredom ended up evolving into an intense game series of hangman. That was honestly my favorite part of the day because it just comes to show that we AS MILLENNIALS can survive without our phones, but it was also a great example of making the best out of every moment. It was a great way to end the day. Stay tuned for more posts!