Journalist, Blogger or Both? Accelerated Learning Resources

Journalist, Blogger or Both?

Last year I swore I wouldnt return to South By South West. I promised myself I would wait to return to the Austin, Texas, music festival until I reached the point in my career where my job would pay for my flight, and I’d return home from Austin with a few dollars in my pocket. I did not think that point would be one year later, but there I was, on March 20th, flying home from Austin, exhausted after four packed festival days. I couldn’t have asked for a better senior-year Spring Break, but when I got home, my English books beat me up for deserting them.

In Austin, I spent one day wearing my blogger hat, while Pellytwins co-presented a DIY house show with my radio station, WNYU. The 16-band showcase brought out hundreds of attendees from all over the world—Mexico, Italy, Australia, Japan, plus lots of locals—to a huge, wooded backyard in South Austin. It was a magical, underground alternative to the chaotic festival. And I also spent one day working for one of the biggest names in music media: SPIN, where I interned last year. The magazine hired me as a freelancer, to interview artists behind the camera at their SXSW loft for SPIN.com. A personal highlight was watching Chris Walla from Death Cab for Cutie perform with the Seattle band Telekinesis before I interviewed them.

My work in Austin did not directly involve writing, but both gigs were extensions of my journalism and blogging work. And they had me dwelling, all week, on a topic that hasn’t left my mind all year: the differences between what it means to be a “music journalist” versus a “music blogger” in 2011.

Interestingly, the “Blogger vs. Journalist” question came up in a SXSW Interactive talk last month, by NYU Journalism’s own Jay Rosen. Although Rosen’s talk focused on news reporting, his concept—that professional journalists still generally tag bloggers as “nonprofessional”—exists in the music press today. (In recent months that tension has been documented by several awkward Blogger vs. Journalist feuds on Twitter.) The consensus among music writers is that bloggers dig for new talent and “break” bands quickly, while journalists carefully analyze trends and interview intensely. But I think music journalism needs more people to be hybrids of the two—bloggers with journalistic instincts to do more thorough work, and journalists with their ears to the ground to take more risks with their reporting. It’s a simple concept, but one that I plan to hold on to as I move forward with my writing.

The weekend before SXSW, my sister, Liz, and I went to Philadelphia for a session of the non-profit web series Shaking Through—which helps young bands by giving them access to a professional recording studio, and documenting the session on camera. (My sister and I “curated” the session.) In my eyes, Shaking Through embodies that synthesis of music journalism and music blogging, by bringing the professionalism of traditional music journalism to the blogosphere.

Back in New York, I crossed another teen dream off the list last month, when I wrote my first review for the Village Voice. Which was cool, but I still have no idea what my life will look like after I graduate on May 18. In fact, I almost laughed leaving NYU’s journalism career fair last month, which they should have advertised as an internship fair.

Whatever turns I take come May, I hope they bring me back to Austin in 2012.

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