At last week’s New York Women in Communications Student Career Conference, Her Campus Fordham had the opportunity to hear from successful women in the communications industry. The day was filled with inspiring stories, life lessons, and solid advice on how to thrive in your career. On the panel for Digital & Social Networking Platforms sat Roxanne Emadi, an editor at BuzzFeed News. Roxanne spoke with us about the most challenging aspect of her job, the changing industry climate, and her advice to college women interested in a career in journalism.
Her Campus Fordham: What’s the most challenging aspect of your job?
Roxanne: To be honest, I came into BuzzFeed really surprised by how traditional the newsroom was. A lot of people we hired are amazing reporters and editors that came from places like The New York Times and The Guardian, but they’re not social savvy and they’re not thinking about how to present their stories. Reporters and editors are doing impactful work, but it’s really been a challenge to communicate that. To teach the newsroom how Facebook is changing every 3 months with its algorithms, how we’re focusing on video now, and why that should be important to this politics reporter who’s breaking news this cycle. Navigating that is really hard because it’s a weird line of what’s important in news and what’s viral on the internet, which is a challenge that BuzzFeed has in general. I think I’m always toeing that line of trying to communicate like, ‘hey guys, do you have better thumbnails’, but also understanding how to present our best work. No one knows what the Internet is going to look like in a year, so navigating that is a challenge.
HCFU: Do you think that has to do with how BuzzFeed is associated with their video content and their listicles, is that also a challenge?
Roxanne: I don’t think that’s a challenge for us in BuzzFeed News and I think the media industry understands the great journalism that BuzzFeed has been doing. I think outside of that there definitely are perceptions like, ‘oh BuzzFeed, they do news?’ but those people are just missing out. So I don’t think it’s a big challenge, but we are constantly navigating that line of knowing what gets attention on the Internet and that’s not always really important journalism. But that’s our job to figure out how to bridge that.
HCFU: I came into college wanting to do print journalism and I’m realizing that you can produce really great stories online, so I’m curious what you like about digital v. print and where you see that going?
Roxanne: I was totally the same way. When I was in college, I wanted to be in magazines, my dream job was working at The New Yorker, but that just doesn’t exist anymore. Actually when I graduated in 2008, it was even harder. So I decided I was going to become an expert in emerging platforms and in digital and social and be an asset to the industry. Especially when it was so hard to get jobs, I went to work for a tech company and I brought that back to a newsroom and now I know a lot of things that they don’t. But I think if I could go back, I would focus on video, which is everything now.
People read features on the Internet. We’ve had long, 10,000 word features get millions of views. Because telling great stories and being a good writer, it doesn’t matter what platform you’re on. I write push alerts, I write Tweets, I write Facebook posts, I write summaries in our newsletters every day and having that editorial judgment, it will be everywhere. Honestly, if you’re young, I don’t think there’s an excuse not to be social savvy. To say to you don’t really use Snapchat, like it’s too cool for school, no just learn it. Because if you’re not learning new things now when you’re at the start of your career, where are you going to be in 15 years? Totally obsolete. Keep learning.
HCFU: Would that go along with your advice for college students interested in this industry?
Roxanne: Absolutely. Definitely know the platforms, know how the industry is changing and study that. Also, just geek out about what you’re really passionate about, even if it’s a certain beat or area of journalism, whatever it is, just be obsessed with it. Meet people and be about it, because it shows and then you’ll have fun in the job you’re in. My job is hard, I’m tired, I’m really stressed out about the election, but it’s also really cool and really fun. I think it’s cool to work somewhere where people can be into pop culture and funny things and also appreciate serious journalism.