Kevin Anderson Skype Interview
By Ginny Atwood, George Mason University, April 9, 2009
“Journalists have the wrong heroes,” said Kevin Anderson, blog editor for the Gardian. Aspiring journalists frequently idolize water gate style investigative journalists, but Anderson believes they should be looking to new media to get ahead in their field.
Anderson has been with online journalism from the start. When BBC news started its flagship bureau in D.C. they asked him to be the correspondent. He’s covered the Oscars three times as well as every presidential election since 96. Anderson suggests, however, that it’s not what you cover but how you cover it that will make the difference.
Anderson met with students from Steve Klein’s online journalism course at George Mason University to discuss the media tools available to upcoming journalists. The interview itself demonstrated one of those tools—he spoke to the class through Skype from London.
According to Anderson, many students now use social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter for more than keeping up with friends, they are getting jobs through it. Once in those jobs, career networks can be built through social sites as well as through blogs and LinkedIn.
Anderson says he sees too few applications from aspiring journalists that actually highlight their media skills. Many of them are sticking to the traditional resumes and writing samples. “Media skills are what is going to set you apart,” Anderson said.
In some jobs you learn one or two skills that you perform over and over your entire career, but not journalism. It is rapidly changing and one thing Anderson says he has learned is that in this field “you need to stay ahead of the curve.”
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