“All of the true things I’m about to tell you are shameless lies.” Is it ever acceptable to walk into an interview with a mentality straight out of the Books of Bokonon from Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle? In addition to being what is possibly my favorite literary quote ever, I think the idea of telling true lies really epitomizes an issue that so many science writers trying to break into the business are facing: when asked what our skills are, is what we feel comfortable knowing, all that we really know? I’ve been turning this over in my brain for a couple of months now. In September I wrote a blog post about whether or not learning to code should be required for journalists. Since I admittedly can’t code, I took the position that it doesn’t need to be required. I also said that in interviews it is totally unacceptable to claim that you can code when you can’t. I didn’t expect that statement to be a part of the post that would get any discussion going, but as it turned out it became for me the most interesting part. When the #sci4hels got talking about it, what seemed like a black and white issue (of course you shouldn’t stretch the truth in an interview!) became a lot less clear and a lot more complicated.
Degrees of truth
A lie is a lie, right? As journalists don’t we value the implicit requirement of honestly above nearly all else? Doesn’t this extend from what we say in a piece to the way we conduct ourselves professionally? So then, can you sit in an interview and when asked if you can code, edit video, make a podcast, etc. say that you can when you’ve never done it before? Is the skill that you have the ability to code or is the skill that you have the ability to learn to code? Learn quickly. In a way so that your potential employer never finds out that the moment you told them you could code you actually couldn’t. Is stretching the truth about your abilities lying? Even if it is lying, is it wrong or is it just a smart business move?
For me, the idea of claiming to know code when I don’t is absurd. Mostly because I don’t stand a chance of learning code in the time between getting hired and needing to use it on a professional level. I know, I know code isn’t THAT hard. I’ve heard that argument, the “you can do if you try” talk. I’m not scared to try, I just know myself enough to know that I’m not going to learn to code in a day. It took several weeks of my seventh grade school year for the Pythagorean theorem to make sense, and that’s not exactly hard. I try, but I’m not always a quick study. Maybe as far as being a millennial goes this puts me in the minority, but I know that if I sat in an interview and promised to code at a professional level in a days time I’d be telling a Vonnegut style shameless lie.
But, I’m not everybody. If the light bulb in your brain turned on a little bit faster when you were twelve and learning that a² + b² = c² then maybe you can learn to code in a day. Maybe code is the most logical thing you’ve ever seen and you will be its master by dinnertime. If you tell a potential employer that you can code, and you are completely sure of your ability to be able to deliver when called upon to use those skills, are you telling a lie? Is knowing what you need to know in order to know how to code the same as just knowing how to code?
I said before that I wasn’t afraid of code, but by sitting in an interview and swearing to the things I can’t do, am I selling myself short? Some of us might just be hiding behind a list of things we can’t do or won’t do and simultaneously shrinking our career prospects. Self sabotage, as it were. Is it principled, or pathetic? Being honest might be a one way ticket straight to the rejection pile. If I communicate the fact that I’d like to learn to code, and would gladly rise to that challenge enough to make someone want to hire me?
I have no faith in common sense
How do you know whether what you know is enough to claim that you know it? As #sci4hels were discussing this issue, what came up over and over was that you have to use common sense. You have to walk a thin line between what you know, what you know you can learn and how you present yourself and your abilities to your employers. If you claim to know something, and you fall flat on your face and don’t deliver the goods, you could do some real damage to your career. Not just because you’ll make your boss angry, not just because you might lose your job, not just because it might be embarrassing; but also because when you fail to deliver what started as a stretched bit of truth unraveled into a shameless lie. Getting caught in a lie in this business is a nail in your career’s coffin.
Sure, telling a lie about your ability isn’t the same as telling a lie in a story. I’m not saying that getting caught lying to an employer about what you can do is going to send your career to Lehrer type depths, but it isn’t going to help you get hired anywhere else. You run the risk of ending up labeled as someone who can’t deliver. Getting paid jobs as a science writer is hard enough, getting them once a pissed off editor tells all their connections not to hire you because you aren’t going to produce the work you say you will is going to be impossible.
This is a business about connections, if you start burning bridges so early in your career, you can really back yourself into a corner. It also speaks to character, doesn’t it? If you’ll lie about your abilities, what else will you lie about? How is anyone supposed to know where your professional ethics fall when you establish yourself as someone for whom a lie isn’t a lie it’s really more of a gray area.
So should we be telling young journalists that it’s okay to claim to be a master of science communication so long as you don’t fall flat on your face? It’s okay to lie, as long as you don’t fail and get caught. Is that really the lesson here? I have zero faith in advising journalism students to use common sense. Zero. If common sense were a clear boundary we wouldn’t still be spending entire class periods discussing what is Facebook appropriate (yes, even that cute picture of you playing beer pong with your Grandma probably doesn’t convey that you are serious about your career) and I’ve sat through those classes so I know very well what kind of questions students are asking. Use common sense doesn’t satisfy.
So then what are you supposed to do? The only answer that doesn’t present an ethical dilemma is to just learn code and then you’ll know you know it and you won’t be in a position where stretching the truth even comes up. Even someone with my stance has to agree that code is a nice skill to be packing in your arsenal. But this goes further than code. It could apply to any kind of program or web application; you can’t be an expert in everything. There are definitely going to be jobs that you might want where you don’t know the technology that is being used. It comes down to a personal risk vs. benefits assessment.
There is a lot to lose if you get caught claiming you can do things and not rising to the challenge – your reputation and your future prospects to name a few. There is also a lot to gain by forcing yourself to rise to the challenge to learn new things, get the job and stay competitive in this field. Maybe what new and young science journalists need is the kick in the rear that promising to deliver upon a skill brings. Maybe if I put myself in that situation I’d find that code isn’t nearly as bad as the Pythagorean theorem, and a lot of doors for future job prospects would get opened. Maybe I would torch my promising young career in a blaze of gray area glory.
Common sense is itself a gray area. If we are going to advise journalism students of anything, I’d say informed decision making is probably the way to go. You should be aware of the risks you take when you climb out on a limb with no safety net, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t still climb. It has to be a personal case by case call, which really doesn’t help much. Hopefully though, if you think through the risks and the benefits of how you can present your skills, you’ll come to a decision that is the right one for you and your career. So proceed with caution.
I definitely agree with this point from Rose, there are so many different skills you use as a journalist but a lot of what you need to know will vary based on your personal style and interests, what platform you write for, and what topics you are covering. I’ve found that I learned a lot more from going out and actually chasing down stories than I did sitting in classrooms. Of course, the guidance of journalism school makes learning by trial and error much less perilous than it can otherwise be, so classroom lessons have value too.
I moaned an awful lot about how scary being turned loose into the unemployed masses at the end of grad school seemed. Journalism has adapted to changes in viewership, platform and the poor economy, and so too must journalists or we run the risk of ceasing to be relevant. Making yourself as employable as possible is a good thing, but only if you are going after jobs where you can really contribute. You’ll only be able to contribute if either you know what you are doing or you have the desire and the drive to learn what to do. This thought brings me to the next point I made, not all the skills journalists use will appeal to all journalists. As a profession we can do a lot of different things, but that doesn’t mean that everyone wants to do everything.
If you are looking for a job, you have to be honest with yourself and your resume. I think for young journalists there is a temptation to trumpet skills that we only sorta, kinda, maybe have from that two hour seminar we sat through that one time. You can fit what I know about code on the head of a pin, and I’ve sat through basic training courses multiple times. My resume says nothing about being able to code, because I honestly don’t know how. It is always better to be honest about what you know. If you aren’t an expert in something, don’t claim to be. All you’ll do is disappoint possible employers. I think you can go a lot farther being honest about where you are with your skills, if you don’t know code but would like to then say so. If you’ve edited a video once or twice and would like to continue developing those skills then say so. Just don’t make yourself into an expert in something when you aren’t.
I recently graduated from the professional track Master’s program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a program that with only three core courses is left purposely open for students to do their own exploring. So what exploring did I do? I chose to spend my time taking science classes (mostly zoology) learning more about narrative writing and structure, and getting a better handle on social media, personal branding and marketing myself online. All good things to learn while at school, but I didn’t learn code. I honestly have zero interest in code, it isn’t something I’ve ever wanted to do, I don’t have the patience for it and I feel like my brain just doesn’t absorb even the basic information about code whenever it is presented to me. But that doesn’t make me an inept science writer. Kathleen Raven joined the conversation, and brought up the following reason why not knowing code can still be okay.
Part of the reason I think I haven’t been particularly motivated to learn code is because I haven’t needed it. I was able to set up this blog and my website (www.erinpodolak.com) on WordPress using basic templates that suited my needs. I’m on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and G+ but none of these online activities involve needing to write my own code. To do what I want to online I haven’t run into the need to write code. Kathleen then made another point about a science journalism skill, the ability to do math, which can be overlooked but is important to a writer’s skill set.
Being able to do the math to fact check research reports and call bullshit when necessary is an important part of the reporting that science journalists do for their stories. If you know code but can’t do math, you have a critical weakness in your skill set. In my opinion the same goes for being able to structure stories successfully, and handle difficult interviews well. If you don’t have the basics, then the extras like code are just floating out there on your resume with no foundation. Being really good at the basics, and then selectively adding skills based on what you find that you need to know, and what you find you would like to know seems like a solid way to go about building your skill set. I think this gets us to the last points that Rose made:
You need to do something that you enjoy. If you don’t enjoy code then in my opinion you shouldn’t feel like it is an essential skill to have. You might want to be the kind of journalist that can do it all, kudos to you for that. But, I don’t think there is anything wrong with wanting to have a few select skills and being really good at them. If you are honest with yourself and honest with employers I think you can definitely learn an array of skills that suit you and your job. We have options, and that is a great thing. Happy times, indeed.
Note: This is only a brief excerpt from the first few days of this conversation. Much more was said, including more back and forth between Lena, Rose and myself about skills and how to present yourself to employers and from Bora, Lena, Rose and Dan Fagin (@danfagin) about the structure of jschool programs and the balance needed to meet students needs. Still plenty more to say about these topics!
This conversation took place before we started the hashtag #sci4hels to mark all of the tweets. Be sure to monitor the hashtag in the future to see more of the on going discussion between Kathleen, Lena, Rose, Bora, myself and others!
I am a baby chicken. Not literally of course, but figuratively speaking I am a little chick of a science writer. Fledgling, if you will. Continuing with this analogy, I recently left my incubator in the journalism school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and am now out in the world looking for work as a journalist. It is tough out here for a baby chicken, and any clips and exposure you can get have tremendous value. This is why I think it is downright wonderful that Scientific American has a blog in their network dedicated to new and young science writers.
Borrowing from the blog’s about description, the SA Incubator is, “a place where we explore and highlight the work of new and young science writers and journalists, especially those who are current or recent students in specialized science, health, and environmental reporting programs in schools of journalism.”
On the SA Incubator you can find profiles of new and young science writers, links to interesting work from these science writers (and others) chosen by the blog’s editors, profiles of student run science publications, and other assorted posts on topics of interest to writers who are just getting started.
I think you would be hard pressed to find a science writer who doesn’t aspire to see their name in Scientific American. Speaking from personal experience, having a profile dedicated to you and your work on a Scientific American blog is a thrill. It was an experience that I enjoyed so much that I wanted to learn more about why a publication like Scientific American would set aside such a great space on their network for someone like me. What is in it for them?
To answer that question, I turned to the Blogfather himself, Bora Zivkovic. The SA Incubator is written by Zivkovic, who is the Blogs Editor at Scientific American, and Khalil Cassimally, community manager of Nature Education’sScitable blog network.
How Big Can It Be?According to Zivkovic, there are a lot of reasons why the Scientific Americannetwork includes a blog about new and young science writers. One reason is the network’s size. When it launched in the summer of 2011, I remember being struck by the sheer volume of awesome that is included in Scientific American’s blog network. While it is a large network, there are still limits on how many blogs can be included. The cost, time and effort it takes to manage the network are obvious reasons why there would be a limit, but Zivkovic also pointed out that some of the value of having a network in the first place comes from it being of a limited size.
One of the coolest things about the Scientific American network is the diversity of writers and topics. If the network got any bigger, it would be difficult for the average person to read all of the posts. If the number of posts becomes daunting, the reader’s habits will change from browsing to more targeted reading. “Instead of at least occasionally checking out all of the bloggers they only focus on their favorites (some readers always will, but at least some don’t) – thus the ‘network effect’ for bloggers is diminished,” said Zivkovic.
What does that mean for the SA Incubator? There simply isn’t space for everyone to have their own blog on the network. Therefore, creating a blog that includes a lot of work by a lot of people is a way to increase the number of voices in the network without it becoming completely overwhelming. It also gives Scientific American a chance to bring new members into the family of bloggers without diluting the existing community too much. According to Zivkovic, this helps maintain a balance between keeping the network fresh and diverse while still keeping it coherent and friendly. For the new and young science writers it is difficult to compete with more seasoned bloggers for a space in the regular network. The SA Incubator gives new and young writers a space where they can participate and be seen and heard without taxing the network.
For new and young science writers, the SA Incubator is also a way to have a presence in the network without having to take on the full responsibility of having your own blog. Zivkovic explained the juggling act new and young writers perform: “Many of the youngest writers are still in school, too busy with class assignments, or are in internships, or are too busy breaking into freelancing to be able to blog with regular frequency.” The SA Incubator gives these writers the opportunity to get noticed without adding to the stress and demands of finding your way as a journalist.
Getting Over The Wall, and Getting A Job
Another reason to include a blog for new and young science writers is because the job we do is so important, but so competitive and difficult to break into. There is a big difference between a general reporter and a science writer; the more skilled science writers we have out there, the better. When I think of science writers I admire and the good work that they do; good to me meaning factual, nuanced, interesting and true; I’m inspired and intimidated. Inspired because I really believe science writers can make a huge difference in helping people understand and appreciate science, and intimidated because the bar has been set very high. The more people we have out there combating the bad science coverage by debunking, clarifying, and explaining, the better.
When journalists talk about this we tend to refer to it as the Push vs. Pull strategy. Essentially, it is the idea that if the general public isn’t drawn to science stories on their own (pull) perhaps we can bring the science stories to them wherever they are (push). To be able to be able to pull people into places where they can access science content and also push out science content everywhere we can, we need a large well trained work force. Increasing the profile of new and young science writers and helping them get the opportunity to do this job is the value of the SA Incubator.
According to Zivkovic, helping get new and young science writers hired is part of the joy of running a blog like the SA Incubator. If you are looking to hire a science writer, you can find them at Scientific American on the blogs homepage, in the weekly linkfests, in the ScienceOnline interviews, on the Guest Blog and on the Incubator. As Zivkovic said, “Hire away! Let the good young writers infiltrate the media giants and transform them from within.”
For Zivkovic, giving new and young science writers a hand really is about community. To understand why, he recommended reading and watching Robert Krulwich’s commencement speech to the Berkeley Journalism School’s Class of 2011, which I too recommend. Krulwich talks about how to get over the wall that new writers face. The wall is what separates you from the journalists who actually get to do what you want to do.
Zivkovic isn’t a trained writer, but he started blogging about science back in 2004 anyway. He was invited to a blogging network in 2006. His job as Blogs Editor at Scientific American? Yeah, safe to say his blogging had something to do with that. This success story is something he attributes to the science blogging community. Blogging is what got Zivkovic over the wall, and now he is running the SA Incubator to help people like me figure out a way to pull themselves up over that same wall.
“These people became my community, my second family. It is that community that helped me every step of the way. They cheered me on. They hit my PayPal button when I was jobless. They pushed for me to get hired. They keep coming to ScienceOnline, they hug me at tweetups, they submit posts to Open Laboratory, they say Yes when I invite them to join the SciAm blog network, they were there for me all along and helped me climb over the wall. It’s payback time. It is now my turn to help others climb that wall, too.”
That is why he gets to be the Blogfather.
We’re In This TogetherAs if that isn’t enough, Zivkovic mentioned one other reason why he thinks the SA Incubator has value for the Scientific American blogs network, the concept of horizontal loyalty. Horizontal loyalty is a phrase borrowed from the Krulwich talk I mentioned earlier (seriously, go read it…after you finish this.) It is making something of yourself alongside people who are also trying to make something of themselves. Do it together. Make something. Be something. For Zivkovic, this is very much a part of why the SA Incubator exists.
“It is not so much about helping new writers get jobs in old media companies (though that helps pay bills for a little while). It is about helping them find each other, build relationships, build friendships, build start-ups, build a whole new science writing ecosystem that will automatically do both ‘push’ and ‘pull’ and reach everyone and displace bad science reporting from the most visible areas of the media, while providing them with a living,” says Zivkovic. “This requires a lot of them, but they need to know each other and work together toward that goal.”
So there you have it. The SA Incubator: Helping Hatch Science Writers Since July 2011. Creating a community for those of us who so badly want to be out there working alongside the more established writers to tell what I think are some of the most important stories there are. I was truly humbled to be counted among so many great science writers and be given a space on the SA Incubator. I wrote this post because I’m grateful for the chance to be included, but also because I really believe having a space for new and young science writers to connect and promote themselves is important. Baby chickens (and baby science writers too) all have to start somewhere.
Now, if you are a fellow fledgling science writer I know what you are thinking. You are thinking how can I get in on this? You can start by following, subscribing, etc. on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+. You can start commenting on the blogs in the Scientific American network (Zivkovic reads all the comments.) You can also go the direct route and just introduce yourself. Send an email, pitch to the Guest Blog, or send Zivkovic a link to some of your work. A direct message on Twitter would work too; you can find him @BoraZ.
This semester I’ve been taking a class in social media. For some people it might seem like a silly concept to sit for a few hours every week and talk about tweeting, but there is a lot that goes into being strategic online. By implementing some of the ideas I’ve been exposed to this semester I’ve definitely seen my social media presence grow. People actually say things to me on Twitter these days (@erinpodolak) and I’m starting to network, which is important since I’m currently in the market for a job. I’ve been doing a lot of listening on Twitter lately about how to use social media effectively, and how it can help you professionally. There are several schools of thought about these things, so to learn more I decided to ask someone who already has the job they want.
Kevin Newton is an eBusiness Software Architect for Serigraph, here in Wisconsin. He writes blog posts for his company to help maintain their social media presence, in addition to using social media as an individual for both personal and professional purposes. I’m constantly hearing people say that they have a Google+ and then don’t use it (which would be my answer) but Newton says he uses Google+ almost exclusively for personal purposes, which is something I honestly haven’t really considered doing. Newton has found value in LinkedIn for business, which I’ve heard some very mixed reviews on, and then uses Facebook as a mixture of the personal and professional.
Professionally, Newton has noticed that when blog posts go out on his company’s Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ accounts there is a flurry of activity. They have gained new clients from this, which is a direct return on investment for the time they put into social media. How much time is that exactly? Newton says that for a few hours of effort each month, they see direct value coming from social media.
I recently posted about Facebook and asked whether or not it was a good idea to transition from a personal page to a professional page, or whether I should try to have both. For Newton Facebook became a hybrid because contacts from his personal life and his professional life both wanted to connect using the platform. However, he stressed the importance of watching what you do online particularly when you have contacts from different parts of your life all coming together.
“Where it has a bit of both I try to be very direct in my posts and my responses,” says Newton “There are too many risks with things you cannot control when you have a mix. A friend that I have not spoken with for 20 years posts a rude picture or comment and it reflects poorly on me, so I try to distance myself from those risks.”
I think this is a good point, and not only if you are connecting with people from long ago. Even people who are currently a part of your life can post something inappropriate (or at least with the people that I know) so it is best to always be monitoring what appears on your profile. From my semester’s worth of studying social media, the answer I have heard consistently regarding appropriate Facebook content is that you’d rather be safe than sorry. You don’t want to lose job opportunities for a friend’s comment.
Since I am currently among the hoards of people out there looking for a job, I asked Newton what kind of value social media has for those of us actively engaged in job searching. Newton advocated LinkedIn to help get yourself in front of employers, but he warned that you need to have the content to back up whatever skills you are offering potential employers or clients.
“You have to have something credible to speak about and you have to post often for it to be effective,” says Newton.
Newton also noted that in addition to having something of value to say, it is also important to be helpful. Answering questions is a way to establish yourself as an authority on a topic (so long as you have the right answers) and get noticed for what you know. One way you can accomplish this (which I’ve said before is currently the bane of my existence) is by commenting on other blogs to help people out. Although, Newton did caution that if you are currently employed you might want to check with your employer before jumping into the social media scene to offer advice and tips about what you do.