Announcing JaclynSchiff.com

As some readers of this blog know, I've been working on establishing a presence and new blog at JaclynSchiff.com. Maybe you're thinking: great, just what the world needs another blog. I was thinking something like that when I first seriously considered creating a new blog. The text that follows helps to explain what lead me to create the new site and will tell you a little about what I'll be writing about over there.

When I started The Schiff Report, I hoped that blogging would be a fun and rewarding experience. I had been a casual blog reader for a while and was reading a lot of mainstream media articles about what seemed like a blogging revolution. I was amazed at what people were accomplishing because of their blogs, and I felt compelled to try it out. There was no major turning point, but over the course of a few days in early 2008, I decided that I wanted to seriously venture into blogging and see its effects first-hand. I'd done some informal blogging, but I'd never really used blogging to network or market myself. At least, not in any conscious way. So I started reading blogs. Religiously. The more I read, the more I found new things to read. It was quite overwhelming (and still is). Then at some point early in my quest to get serious about blogs, I stumbled onto Penelope Trunk's blog. I didn't know it at the time, but this discovery was the start of my own blog.

I was blown away by Penelope's blog! Wow. I devoured the "Most Popular" posts and couldn't believe it when I found her post about how to start blogging. This was the trigger I needed. I read a bit more. Wow, she's starting a new company! Who is this Ryan guy? What's Employee Evolution? Amazing! Another incredible blog. Hmm, maybe I should start out by doing some guest posts. So I did, and then when I learned more about BrazenCareerist.com, I decided it was time to start my own blog so that I could get involved with the site.

I'd spent a lot of time finding my way around the blogosphere, but hadn't been focusing on what I'd write about and why I'd spend my time writing it. Obviously I had some ideas, but I wasn't sure of my professional direction, and I was confused. There I was getting all excited about blogging as a career tool, but I wasn't certain about my own passions and career path. I guess it's totally age appropriate, but I suspect that the content on many Gen. Y blogs is compromised because many of the bloggers are going through a similar thing. Some of them openly discuss these questions, while others do not, but I think when you truly don't have a good idea about where you're going, you can't write a blog that effectively markets yourself or your ideas. Unless you're a brilliant writer.

In college, I pursued lots of different journalism opportunities and saw myself doing something in news as soon as I graduated. I loved all the writing and radio stuff I was involved in, and mostly had way more fun at my internships than in my classes (more on that here). But then I graduated, started working and got a first-hand look at the state of journalism. It wasn't pretty. After the security of semesters, four year plans and the other stuff that makes up the structure of life while you're in school, instability in a whole industry was scary.  I couldn't see how I'd move up and where I'd move to, and these looming questions about the future of my chosen profession started to eclipse my passion for it.

Just a few months after I started having these serious doubts about my future in journalism, I got a great job offer from a small PR firm. I was totally interested in trying something different and aside from the the fact that the stability of PR appealed to me, I felt like it would also be a great way to satisfy my curiosity about business. So I tried it out. It was quite different to what I expected. The learning curve was steep. But after a few months, there were aspects of PR that I actually (gasp!) enjoyed. I definitely missed journalism, but rather than getting more into that here, I'd like to leave the details for a different post.

Fast forward to now. It's April 2009, and I've just started a new job. In journalism. This is totally not what I expected when I accepted a job in PR and with the ongoing job losses in media. But things just fell into place. While I couldn't be more excited about going back to being the person who asks the questions rather than the one who frames the answers, I was certainly nervous about switching because I still can't really see a path for myself in journalism. Perhaps because with the way the industry is changing, there just aren't chartered routes anymore. But I'm OK with that. In fact, it's pretty exciting because changes mean opportunity and I see tons of ways to innovate. 

While all this was going down offline, I kept feeling like my blog's focus on Gen. Y didn't make total sense. I even wondered about it aloud. I am interested in reading what people say about Gen. Y and what characterizes us as a group etc. I mean, we all find it fascinating to read about ourselves, right? Or maybe that's just because I'm a millennial AKA self-absorbed. Either way, Gen. Y is not my passion. I really wasn't clear on my passion, but I was thinking about it a lot. With everything I wrote, each job offer I weighed and many things that I read, I was searching and learning. Then it hit me, and now that it has I'm amazed that it wasn't more obvious to me before. Media. That's my passion. All types, all forms, all aspects. It was there all along as the common thread in every career move I've made, almost every hobby I'd adopted and it dominated so many of my conversations with friends, family and coworkers. I'm fascinated with the way we transmit news and what makes news. Regardless of whether I'm working in PR or journalism, my job choices have been fueled by a passion for all things news.

Although I'm not sure where journalism will take me or any of us next, I know I want to think about it and do it and write about it. JaclynSchiff.com will feature that focus. I hope you'll check it out and subscribe and share your thoughts.

Meghan McCain Talks Gen. Y on Larry King

Did you catch Meghan McCain on Larry King on Monday night?

I missed it, but the transcript of her interview is now available online.

McCain--who refers to herself as a "progressive Republican," and is a writer for The Daily Beast (portfolio here)--talked about her recent spat with Laura Ingraham, her thoughts on tattoos and her positive regard for Governor Bobby Jindal.

She said the word, "generation," five times during the interview and said that President Barack Obama is on the "verge" of overexposure, but only when it comes to older generations.

Here's the quote:

"I think he is on the verge of [overexposure]. I do think you have to be careful. But it is a different generation. [My] generation ... we like our celebrities. And I think that he realizes that because he is very much a Generation Y president. However, he is on the risk of alienating his older followers."

*UPDATE:
In an op-ed in the Washington Post today, Kathleen Parker discusses some of the recent media coverage that Meghan McCain has been generating.

She writes, "a 24-year-old political pundette doesn't find her way onto 'Larry King Live' without a famous name," adding, "thanks to the 'Internets,' as our former president liked to say, young people are gaining influence sooner than ever before."

Parker suggests that McCain is a good Gen. Y poster child for the GOP, and I definitely see where she's coming from. McCain certainly has some media savvy (although I searched her on Twitter and didn't find an account... don't be like Luke!) and her message seems to be very much in sync with the under 30 crowd. What do you think? Which other Gen. Y Republicans are making waves like the younger maverick McCain?

*ANOTHER UPDATE:
McCain is a Twitter pro! @kylespector helped me find her, she is @McCainBloggette

Gen. Y Story Without the Gen. Y Angle: Entrepreneurship in the Economic Downturn

The New York Times published an article on Friday that examines how the economic downturn has led some people to pursue entrepreneurial endeavors rather than focus on a traditional job search.

Many "laid-off workers across the country, burned out by a merciless job market, are building business plans instead of sending out résumés. For these people, recession has become the mother of invention," according to the Times. I'm definitely seeing a lot of this online and offline--laid-off workers are increasingly creating their own projects while they try to find a full-time position or focusing on entrepreneurial pursuits indefinitely.

The article reports on the experiences of five people who are doing just this, and the interesting thing about the coverage is that although four of the five people mentioned are millennials, the article doesn't make any mention of Generation Y or raise the Gen. Y/entrepreneurial angle. And of course, there's lots of buzz about Gen. Y being an especially entrepreneurial generation.

While the article includes analysis from a few people who are probably not members of Gen. Y (their ages aren't listed), the only other non-millennial mentioned is a 35 year old who was laid off from Yahoo.

Since there was really no mention of this being a strictly generational phenomenon, it's interesting that the reporter only included examples of people who are younger. Obviously there are reasons why entrepreneurship is more feesible for people in their twenties, but I wonder if the depth of entrepreneurial response to the economy amongst younger workers is uniquely Gen. Y.

Should Luke Russert be on Twitter?

It was President's Day. I was off work and traipsing around on Twitter. Ok, I guess you can't really traipse there in a literal sense, but I was doing the virtual equivalent. MSNBC was on in the background. Luke Russert comes on. He's interviewing Bill Clinton. I look up.

Something about advice for yong people in this economy? I don't really remember, but then as the anchor was closing out with Russert, something caught my ear. The anchor said something about how people can connect with Russert and mentioned Twitter. Russert then said something like, "I'm not on Twitter yet, still looking into that."

Still looking into that?! That's the sort of response I might expect to hear from a 60 year old. I hit the keyboard and in fewer than 140 characters I tweet some version of what I'm thinking:

Immediately I get some responses. A few DMs, some @replies. Some interesting tweeting ensues. Here's a selection:
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henrim @jwschiff how is that absurd? The youth population on Twitter is not at all representative the rest of youth population.

jwschiff @henrim it's not about representation, but huge part of the Gen. Y story is technology, social media, seems silly not to monitor that part


KathleenLD @henrim agreed. The youth demographic on Twitter is not representative of youth as a whole. More tech/journ heavy than the general pop, even

jwschiff @KathleenLD @henrim don't you think it's a problem Russert doesn't have access to this convo? Twitter isn't everything, but imp. 2 follow

henrim @jwschiff @KathleenLD we are overachievers, hyper-connected, overely-political geeks... i say that in the nicest way possible.

jwschiff @henrim yes, but u don't think with the thousands of twittr articles there's a youth angle? and if not, that's worth reporting too

henrim @jwschiff @KathleenLD I would gladly give up the youth angle coverage on twitter if he covers college cost/debt in more dept.

Some other thoughts:

Nextvoice247 @jwschiff he cvers youth issues as an observer & not actve participant; "sees" youth, but finds himself n role of old guard w fresh face

nishachittal @jwschiff interesting about Luke Russert. But I think most journos still dont get Twitter. Just look at @andersoncooper or @gstephanopoulos
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So henrim and KathleenLD have valid points. Yes, those of us on Twitter are part of a small group of the "youth" demographic or pretty much any other age group. But we're also part of an emerging trend, and that's a story.

But here's the gist of why I was shocked to hear that Russert isn't on Twitter:

As an NBC News correspondent-at-large (bio here), he is tasked with reporting on stories with a youth angle. NBC brought him aboard just as the presidential elections were heading into the home stretch and announced that Russert would cover the youth vote during the election cycle.

Social media is a huge part of some of these stories. Russert even talked about the importance of the Internet angle. Gen. Y and younger generations are notriously plugged in and spend a lot of time interacting online. A journalist who is on a youth beat needs to be monitoring what happens online, this MediaShift post raises a lot of these issues and at the very least shows that Twitter is a part of the conversation.

Twitter certainly isn't the entire story, but leaving it out is like covering a school district and only attending official meetings. Good reporters would dig deeper. They interact with students, parents, teachers and administrators in a variety of settings. They pay attention to informal channels, off-the-cuff remarks and read between the lines.

In all fairness to Russert, he is blogging, kind of (no updates since October and very few links, posts look like articles). But seriously, I don't know what he's up against with bureaucracy and other barriers at NBC. Perhaps contracts and other things prevent him from being enterprising in this way, and he only graduated from college last May! He also freely admits that nepotism certainly plays a role in how he ended up in this gig -- in October, he told MediaBistro, "Did my name get my foot in the door? Absolutely, I'll be the first to admit that. But has my performance and ability got my butt through the door? Yes."

But with all that considered, I think Russert would have been better off if he were plugged in and paying attention.

*If you're not already doing so, follow me on Twitter - @jwschiff *

National Journal Examine Millennials' Poltical Involvement

National Journal Magazine has published an article analyzing Gen. Y's political involvement.

If you're familiar with Morley Winograd and Michael Hais, then there's nothing especially eye-opening about what Ronald Brownstein has written. But if you haven't read a lot of media coverage about how millennials' are thought of as a political demographic, then this is a quick and comprehensive read.

Brownstein writes:

Generational comparisons can simplify, but early indications are that Millennials may balance idealism and pragmatism better than either Baby Boomers (who have favored the former, at times to self-righteous extremes) or Generation X-ers (who have often had trouble rising above self-interest).

How Many Millennials Made Forbes' "Web Celeb 25" List?

Depends of course on who you count as a member of Gen. Y!

Let's go with people under the age of 30 who are on the list.

They are:

Perez Hilton - 30 years old (made the top spot)

Pete Cashmore of Mashable - 23 years old (#6 on the list and the youngest)

Nate Silver who blogs at FiveThirtyEight.com - 30 years old (#15)