OPINIONS / INTERVIEWS: Advice to young journalists: learn multimedia, languages

by James Breiner

Spain's traditional media, like those in the U.S., have experienced devastating declines in revenues and have cut staff ruthlessly.

In an interview with with the Spanish website LaInformacion.com, Juan Antonio Giner, co-founder of Innovation Media Consulting, shared some of his strong opinions about how young journalists and traditional media should confront the challenge from digital media. Some translated excerpts from that interview follow.

What advice do you have for young journalists who want to make a decent living practicing their chosen craft?

Giner: The job market is limited, and for that reason there will never be work for everyone everywhere and in all media. Competition today is fierce, and that is a good thing. The only ones who will find work are those who are the best trained, who have acquired the most knowledge, who have mastered telling stories with multimedia, who speak more than one language, and, above all, who want to take on the world. This is a profession for people with passion, with fight, who are undaunted, relentless.

full interview

INTERVIEWS: "Just Yell Fire" Creator Wins Award For Teaching Girls About Self-Defense

Dallas Jessup, 20, is founder and CEO of Just Yell Fire -- a nonprofit working to empower girls to defend themselves against rape and abduction by learning Filipino Street Fighting techniques. She just won aWorld of Children Award grant to develop her organization further.

Jessup created Just Yell Fire when she was 15. Jessup has a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and is a second degree in Filipino Street Fighting and made a self-defense video for her all-girls school. She is currently a senior at Vanderbilt University. She has worked with professional directors and released two videos: Just Yell Fire geared at middle school and high school girls, and Just Yell Fire: Campus Life, aimed at high school seniors and college-aged girls. Her website gets approximately 1,700 unique visitors a day.

Youth Radio's Davina La'Shay interviewed Jessup about her inspiration and the project:

full interview

INTERVIEWS: Former Nordic Talents Winner Speaks About Her First Feature

13.08.2010

Finnish filmmaker Marja Pyykkö (photo) won a Special Mention at Nordic Talents 2008 for the pitch of her debut feature Run Sister Run. Solar Films immediately came on board to produce the film. The coming of age story about a 15 year-old girl opens this Friday on Finnish screens via Nordisk Film. A few days before the delivery of her first feature (and of her second baby) Pyykkö spoke to us.

full interview

INTERVIEWS: Geena Davis touts gender equality in kids media

Q: How did the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media come into being?

A: That happened as a result of watching kids' entertainment with my then-2-year-old daughter; she's 8 now. I started to watch G-rated videos and TV shows and I was really stunned to see what I perceived to be a big gender disparity.

I was thinking, why on earth in the 21st century are we not showing kids sharing the sandbox equally?

When I mentioned it to people in the industry, the typical reaction was, "I don't think that's true; they've fixed that." I realized to have any impact, I would need data.

(We did) the largest research study ever done on G-rated films and kids' television programs. The results were what I had perceived: There were far more male characters than female; the male characters were doing all the interesting things and having the adventures. The female characters were stereotyped, often serving as eye candy.

Since then we've brought that research to the studios and networks that are creating this content. We work from the inside in a collegial way to encourage improvement.

full interview