Brazen Life is a wonderful lifestyle and career blog for ambitious young professionals.

So you’ve landed what you thought was going to be a great job. But you find yourself working fast and furious without any real clarity about what’s expected of you, what your priorities are or how well you’re doing. You’d like to broaden your skills with maybe a course or an industry conference… but good luck getting support for that. You’re a high performer, so you’d hoped to use this gig as a stepping stone to bigger things, but your manager is clearly not interested in your career advancement.

You start to look for a new job, something that will be a better fit, something with a future. But how do you know the new scene will be any better?

Here’s a one word answer for you: ask. That’s right — ask about career development during the interview.

The interview process isn’t only for potential employers to learn about you. It’s also a great opportunity for you to dig a bit on topics like:

• Does the company have any kind of process for giving employees feedback? How often does that happen? Is it formal or formal? How does it work?

Editor’s note: I strongly recommend that you apply for this Multimedia Storytelling Institute workshop at the Knight Digital Media Center, UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. My experience at a KDMC workshop for journalists interested in multimedia storytelling was amazing.

I know Voice Coach Marilyn Pittman and the others leading the workshop. They’re superstars. You won’t be disappointed. — Susan Older

From the Knight Digital Media Center, April 3, 2012

At every Knight Digital Media Center workshop, we feature presentations from industry leaders and educators – award-winning professionals who join our experienced staff to teach you the latest tools and techniques in new media. This June’s Multimedia Storytelling Institute is no exception.

We are pleased to announce that Marilyn Pittman, a voice coach with more than three decades of experience as a TV news anchor, talk show host, reporter, commentator and radio producer, will be joining us again to lead this very popular session: Talking the Copy.

“Your voice is the most basic and important storytelling tool you have,” Pittman says.

During this session, Marilyn will work with participants on advanced voice techniques, including how to emphasize copy using speed, tone and delivery when recording radio or narration for videos. At the end of the session, participants learn how to do stand-ups and narrate stories in front of the camera. The stand-ups, along with Marilyn’s coaching, are recorded and uploaded to your workshop iPad.

Pittman joins our very own UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism educators, who will also present throughout the two-week workshop. Richard Koci-Hernandez, assistant professor of new media, is an Emmy Award winning visual journalist. Jeremy Rue, an award winning online journalist, is a Ford Foundation teaching fellow and former news photographer.

The KDMC two-week summer institute at UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism will deliver best practices for crafting compelling interactive online content; provide you with strategies for creating successful social media engagement campaigns; teach you how to use storyboarding for multimedia project planning; and give you the tools to design captivating visuals with data for effective community building and audience engagement.

Register Today the early bird discount of 10% expires on April 15th.

To learn more please contact:

Vicki Hammarstedt
vhammarstedt@berkeley.edu
+1.510.642.3892
http://kdmc.berkeley.edu

The deadline for proposals is 5 p.m. EDT, Monday, April 30.

FIJ is interested in proposals that break new ground and expose wrongdoing. Projects relating to government accountability and environmental issues in the United States, local or regional stories with national implications, and applications from ethnic media are strongly encouraged.

This year, the Fund for Investigative Journalism is also putting out a call for investigative proposals on issues of economic inequities in America, and climate change.

FIJ’s grants are made possible through generous funding from the Park Foundation, the Green Park Foundation, the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation, private family foundations, and the public.

The Fund is supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Chair in Investigative and Enterprise Reporting at the Journalism Department in the College of Media at the University of Illinois.

For more than forty years, the Fund for Investigative Journalism has supported work by independent and freelance reporters who do not have the resources to do their investigations. Grants average $5,000. The maximum grant is $10,000. The awards support the costs of reporting, such as travel and document production expenses. Small stipends will be considered as part of the overall award.

If the proposed project addresses an issue that has already been in the news, the applicant must acknowledge the work previously done, and explain how the project would break new ground.

FIJ accepts applications through its website, http://fij.org/apply-grant/. Applicants are encouraged to contact executive director Sandy Bergo with questions about the process.

In partnership with Investigative Reporters and Editors, the FIJ also matches grant recipients with veteran journalists who serve as mentors, at the recipient’s request.

The Fund depends on donations from foundations and individuals. Donations can be made online or by mail to The Fund for Investigative Journalism, 529 14^th Street NW – 13^th floor, Washington DC 20045.

For further information contact:

Sandy Bergo

202-803-5151

fundfij@gmail.com

Think back to last year. Did you hear, see, watch or read something about young people or parents that got under your skin and stayed there? Please tell the maker to apply for a Casey Medal. Winners in a dozen categories are awarded $1000 at a ceremony in D.C. in October and will also be considered for $5000 prizes from America’s Promise Alliance. Check out the application and guidelines at journalismcenter.org. New this year: Youth Media category.

Julie Drizin, Director

Journalism Center on Children & Families

Philip Merrill College of Journalism

University of Maryland

1100 Knight Hall

College Park, MD 20742

301-405-8812

@JCCFNews @JDriz

Increasingly the Bank is embracing social media as a way to expand the reach of its knowledge and messages, but more importantly, to become a better listener and engage more fully. To help drive this process, the Bank’s EXT Online Communications team is seeking a Social Media Specialist (ETC) to create and implement short- and medium- term social media engagement activities in support of key global priorities for the World Bank. A special focus for this role will be to work as a facilitator and guide for subject matter experts who are engaging in social media on behalf of the organization, especially on the organization’s new blogs, in support of the Bank’s social media engagement guidelines which encourage the use of social media.

This position requires hands-on experience implementing social media tools and platforms in order to engage communities. Vital as well: an excellent command of the latest techniques and trends in blogging around economic and international development issues, strong creative and language skills, an ability to engage both internal and external stakeholders, and an ability to work with a diverse set of colleagues.

The ideal candidate has a great written voice, strong interpersonal communication and interview skills, a strong work ethic, an abiding, multifaceted curiosity about new ideas in global development, technology, social entrepreneurship, global trends, sustainable development, and the changing dynamics of the global economy.

The role reports to the Head of Online Communications.

For more information, click here.

By Jules Older, Editor at Large, Displaced Journalists

One month and a couple of weeks ago, I got an email from Lifeguard Gerry Wingenbach. Was he embarrassed! He’d just spent an

Jules Older

extremely uncomfortable night in the drunk-tank in beautiful Whistler, British Columbia. By the time he got to this:

The invitation for my night’s accommodation came from a uniformed young man; I’m guessing 22. He wasn’t comfortable until he had my hands cuffed behind my back. And I felt shame sitting alone in the backseat of his Ford sedan. It was like being in a hockey penalty box on wheels. A friend of mine at Whistler who watched this encounter told me later that the young man was “the kind of guy everyone picked on in high school, and now it was payback time.”

I was cursing the fact that the ski magazine I’d edited for lo those many years was no more. I was dying to publish Gerry’s confession.

As I was, another article by another skiing Lifeguard, Kristen Ulmer. Hers was on skiing like a man. It contained (if that’s the right word, and it isn’t), this riff:

I remember I used to be told, “You’re the best woman skier I’ve ever seen!” and I always thought, “%$#@ you!” I want to ski like a man. We all do. I want to frequency male power; be like a giant, veiny phallus thrusting down the mountain. Like a hairy, naked savage running out of the cave. Like an F-16 blasting through Jell-O. And then it happened. I knew how to publish both these stories and more. I’d publish an eBook and call it SKIING THE EDGE: Humor, Humiliation, Holiness and Heart. Exactly one month later, I had 21 chapters by 20 leading ski and snowboard writers ready to roll. It should be available on a Kindle, iPad, Nook and Sony Reader (as well as your home computer) starting next week.

My first go as publisher. My first eBook. SKIING THE EDGE. How sweet it is. And how scary. And what extraordinary writing. But don’t take my word for it. Here’s writer and contributor Lisa Richardson, who was asked to judge a major competition for the year’s best ski writing:

Whatever is happening out there in Media Land is shriveling up the market for long form work, and the  world of ski storytelling is no different. So what began as a full body immersion in the best ski writing of  the year became a glimpse at the declining opportunities for ski writers to tell stories beyond schilling  resorts in buffed up service pieces masquerading as features.

As it turned out, the best ski writing isn’t getting published.

Chapter Two. Fast forward to October. Another email pings into the in-box. Jules Older, my one-time  editor of the now defunct Ski Press has an idea. (The four most thrilling and dangerous words in the  English language: I have an idea.)

To read the rest of Lisa’s analysis of the decline of published ski writing and her take on the book, I urge you to go to the blog “Lisa Richardson Bylines.”

Which brings us to Cyber Monday, a.k.a. Today.

While the big-box store websites are offering great deals today, I think I can go one better.

SKIING THE EDGE will sell for $3.99.

But today — for you, gentle Lifeguard — it will sell for $0.00.

Let me know if you’d like an advance copy. No charge. And since it’s a PDF, you can read it just as you’re reading this.

Oh, and if you’re thinking, I don’t ski, so it’s not for me — not so fast. Though it includes occasional ski words — bullwheel, couloir, chairlift — I promise, this is a book for lovers of great writing, not just great ski writing.

eBook FAQs

SKIING THE EDGE is my first eBook, and the learning curve has been as steep as a double-black-diamond run at Vail.

If you’re thinking about publishing an eBook of your own, here’s what I’ve learned so far.

I’m no nerd, and I’m not digital savvy. Can I do this?

Yes. You’ve just described me, and I have.

I’ve heard that when you publish online, people can steal your stuff.

I’ve heard the same thing. Don’t let that stop you from doing it.

If I’m working with other writers, do they have to sign a contract with me?

Yes. That’s one piece of advice everybody agrees on.

Is it enough to offer the ebook for sale on Amazon’s Kindle?

No. That’s the biggest player, but don’t neglect Apple, Sony and Barnes & Noble. Or home computers.

How do I reach them?

Through either SmashWords or BookBaby. Both companies reformat your Word document so it uploads to Kindle, iPad, Sony Reader and Nook.

Which one is best?

They’re both good, and since they both have clarifying websites, see which one works best for you. In my case, partly because I thought the process would go faster and I’d get the book out by the opening of the ski season, I went with BookBaby. I’m happy with the choice.

How much should I charge for my travel ebook?

God, I wish I knew. I wish anybody knew. I went for $3.99, but only time will tell if that was smart or cripplingly wrong. We’re in the arena of mystery and magic. Ebook prices range from free to every bit as expensive as old-fashioned dead-tree books.

What’s the quality of eBooks?

The full range, from despicable to “I wish I’d written that.”

How bad is the e-competition?

It’s your worst nightmare. There are, by actual count, 34.5 gazillion eBooks already out there, all raising their hands and shouting, “Choose me! Choose me!” That’s your competition.

What can I do about it?

Write well. Edit well.  Use a strong and appealing cover. Publicize the bejeezus out of your book. Tell everyone you know about it — and get them to tell everyone they know.

Are there other ways to publicize?

Your local radio and TV stations. Hometown paper. Alumni magazine. Websites, Twitter, blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, the works. Use ‘em all.

How about publicity opportunities to avoid?

Rule of thumb: If it costs more than $20, it’s more than likely a scam. Unless you’re shelling out big bucks for a publicist you know and trust, stick to the free stuff.

What about giving books away free to get the buzz going?

The practice has its advocates, but I’m not one of them. Long before the Digital Age, publishers were saying, “I can’t give you any, you know, money, but the exposure will be great for your career.” Didn’t believe it then; still don’t.

Anything else?

A little luck is always a good thing. Skill and persistence are even better.

– jules

– 30 –

Jules Older hangs out at http://julesolder.com. He opines about San Francisco restaurants and New Zealand life on the apps, San Francisco Restaurants and Auckland Insider. SKIING THE EDGE is available on every electronic and mobile platform, including computers.

Two years ago, I got the word: Your life is ending. The career for which you worked the past 30-plus years

Eileen Briesch

is over. It was a normal Friday night, and then it wasn’t. We were going to order pizza from my favorite pizza place, and I was going around asking who wanted in. Then my boss came in and said I needed to come with him. I felt my chest tighten, the throat constrict, the tears start to well up. I thought everyone was looking at me as I walked down the hall with my boss. Then Andy said, “It was nothing that you did.”

Then why was I losing my job, the only thing I’ve ever done in my life? Why was I losing my life?
Other people had husbands and families and kids. They had lives. I had nothing else but this career I had built. This was my life. And now it was gone. It was being pulled out from under me, like a rug, and I was falling down, tripping helplessly to the floor. I tried to stop the tears, but couldn’t. Why, why me, if I did nothing wrong? What was wrong with me?

It was like death, I realized. I left the office that night, went to commiserate with other coworkers who had been “killed” that night, who were losing their jobs. Then I was home by myself to cry, to contemplate my death, my new life after death.Getting laid off is like a disease. The next day, I had to go back to work (it was part of the severance package; we had to work until our actual layoff date 60 days later). I felt like I had a disease, and everyone was afraid to get too close to me, afraid they’d catch the disease, too. The first two days were tough, because first, you cry. Then you want to fight back, you want revenge. And eventually, you say, “Ah, hell, the sun will come up and I’ll be stronger for this.”

And you know what? I am. There have been other layoffs at that company, and I feel like I’m going through it all over again, with every one of my former coworkers. I’m walking down that hall with them, feeling the tears well up again. I don’t know what the journey will be like for them. I know my journey has changed me so much. It has made me dig deep to dip into my reserves, some that I didn’t know were there.

I did land on my feet eventually. I got a new job. Maybe it’s not the world’s best one, but it’s a job and it pays the bills. Wherever life takes me now, I know this experience has changed me for the better. As my psychologist told me before I left Michigan for Louisiana, “You are an amazing woman.”

Yeah, I am.

Now in their late 80s the 1st Black Marines known as Montford Marines talk about their experiences fighting in WWII while still being discriminated against. They are on the verge of getting Congressional Gold Medals. Eric Seals/Detroit Free Press

By Joe Swickard
Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

More than 16 million Americans answered the call to arms in World War II. Of those, 600,000 were the few, the proud, the Marines.

Then there were the Chosen Few, men such as metro Detroiters Calvin Moore, Robert Hassler, Earl Hood, William Cook, Edsel Stallings, Norfflette Mersier and about 20,000 other Montford Point Marines.

After years of discrimination, mistreatment and near invisibility postwar, these African-American Marines of World War II are on the verge of getting the Congressional Gold Medal, America’s highest civilian honor.

It’s about time, too, said Hassler, 86, who lied about his age to enlist 70 years ago. “It’s always bothered me — every year for Black History Month, they talk about the Tuskegee Airmen,” Hassler said. “Nobody knows about the Montford Point Marines.”

A Congressional Gold Medal could change that.

Pride still runs deep for Montford Point Marines.

In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the armed forces to accept African Americans into their ranks, and the Marine Corps was the last to fall in line. Even then, segregation remained as the black recruits and draftees were trained in their own facility — a patch of land adjacent to Camp Lejeune, N.C., called Montford Point. They were forbidden from entering Camp Lejeune without special authorization.

These men endured top brass hostility, segregated training, scornful treatment and the demeaning belief that they didn’t have the guts, character and discipline to defend their country in combat.

Yet the Montford Point Marines, mainly relegated to service battalions, put their lives on the line: humping ammo and supplies under fire and bringing the wounded to safety while being strafed, sniped, bombed and blasted as the Marines island-hopped through the Pacific toward Japan.

And their pride endures today.

With probably fewer than 300 of them still alive…. Read the rest of the story at The Detroit Free Press.

The Park Foundation, based in Ithaca, New York, has awarded the Fund for Investigative Journalism a grant for $75,000; it will give critical assistance to reporters working on domestic reporting projects. This is the second year that the Park Foundation has awarded a grant to the fund.

The fund makes grants to reporters who have the ideas, sources, and know-how to produce groundbreaking investigative journalism, but need help paying the expenses of reporting.

“We are especially grateful that the Park Foundation has chosen to support the fund as part of its mission to promote public service journalism,” said Sandy Bergo, executive director of the fund. “In the past year the support from the Park Foundation launched many important investigations into environmental and government accountability issues.”

Examples of completed projects are an investigation of New York City firefighter fatalities and an investigation of unnecessarily hazardous conditions encountered by Gulf Spill clean-up workers. The grants from the Park Foundation produce more than a dozen investigative reporting projects each year.

“This grant will inspire and invigorate the kind of investigative reporting that is so deeply needed in the US at this time,” said Brant Houston, president of the board of the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

The Fund for Investigative Journalism is also supported by the Ethics and Excellence Foundation, the Green Park Foundation, and the Gannet Foundation.

This year, the fund was recognized as one of the Washington D.C. region’s best nonprofits, and will be featured in the 2011-12 Catalogue for Philanthropy. The Fund is the first journalism organization to be listed in the catalogue, which is distributed to local foundations and philanthropists.

The fund also depends on donations from individuals. Donations can be made online, www.fij.org, or by mail to the Fund for Investigative Journalism, 1023 15^th Street NW, Suite 350, Washington DC 20005.

For better and worse, I tend to work on inspiration, not preparation.

Jules Older

Better because I drop everything except deadlines and focus like a laser on the new project.

Worse because I drop everything except deadlines. When everyone around you is expecting a right turn, a sudden swerve to the left can be unnerving.

In the past month, I made a huge, careening, two-wheels-off-the-ground swerve: an ebook about skiing… a book with a self-imposed deadline — ready to roll before the lifts started turning.

And this week, in the midst of that mega-focus, I detoured to something else. I composed, then sent everyone I know in Greater San Francisco, the message below.

If you have a similar situation where you live, a really good paper in really serious trouble, feel free to borrow the inspiration, copy the words, recreate the idea. (Displaced Journalists will post it as well. S.O.)

— jules

The Chronicle: Ten reasons I hope you’ll subscribe

Like papers everywhere, the San Francisco Chronicle is in trouble. More and more of us are getting our news online; fewer and fewer are buying papers.

Here’s why I hope you’ll reverse that trend in your house, as we have in ours.

1. PG&E. This company is blowing us up. Literally blowing us up. Without the Chronicle’s investigative team, we’d never know that it’s also ‘losing’ evidence, ‘misplacing’ documents, using shoddy materials, in a cozy relationship with the state’s ‘regulators’… and while the smoke was still hanging in the air over San Bruno, PG&E gave a big bonus to its ‘safety’ director.
2. Jon Carroll.
3. Ed Lee. I was right behind Ed for Mayor until the Chronicle began exposing shady practices, shady backers, shady money, even a shady instant biography/hagiography. When I saw Lee’s beautifully produced, ultra-hip, had-to-be wildly expensive YouTube video, that sealed it — I’m voting for somebody else. Wouldn’t have known to change my mind without theChronicle.
4. Bad Reporter.
5. UC. At a time when student fees are rising and entrance quotas shrinking, the University of California has been quietly upping pay and bennies for administrators. How do I know? Read all about it in theChronicle.
6. Willy Brown.
7. Local obsessions. Aside from sports teams (where Chronicle coverage also shines), what are the things that most interest Greater San Franciscans? Food. Wine. The digital world. Green technology. Nearby nature, beaches and mountains. I keep up on all of them through my morning paper.
8. Doonesbury.
9. Lively prose. If I have an addiction, it’s to great writing. I’m amazed at how often I look up from the paper and say, “Hey, listen to this.”
10. Leah Garchik.

Two things you should know.

First, I’m not sentimental about paper vs. digital. I like and use both. But I am passionateabout knowing what’s really going on. Not all papers deliver that, but the Chronicle does… and if it’s going to continue, it needs the financial support of subscribers.

Second, I occasionally write for the Chronicle, and I occasionally fight with the Chronicle. Neither has influenced this message in the slightest.

In this house, we’re subscribers. I hope you’ll be one, too.
— jules

Jules Older (still no relation to Displaced Journalists Founder Susan Older) is a freelance travel writer, the author of children’s books, the creator of the iPhone app San Francisco Restaurants, a speaker, a broadcaster and a consultant. Learn more about Jules here. To become a Lifeguard, just drop Jules a line at jules@julesolder.com, saying, “I’m a writer.  Sign me up!”