Kareem Johnson | A Reporter's Notes

ST. LOUIS — Get ready for more newscasts coming to KMOV in July. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Deb Peterson posted on May 30 that the CBS Affiliate will add newscasts from 7am to 8am and 10:30-11:00am on Sundays. The newscast will be named “Awake Sunday.”

The station already airs 1 hour of news on Saturday and Sunday at 10pm.

John Knicely and Dianna Zoga will anchor with Kristen Cornett providing weather.

My Take:

More newscasts are good; although the news content hasn’t increased with the additions of newscasts at KSDK, KMOV, KPLR, or KDNL the past few years. We’ve seen largely the same content recycled throughout the day, with a few new readers and a developing story.

With newscast additions, traditionally new talent is brought in, but also in recent years, existing talent is given second or even third duties on top of their existing jobs; while great for the bottom line, it’s not great for an industry in need of new talent coming out of schools, but that’s a separate argument. The real problem is can existing talent and staff be expected to do quality work while they are being overworked? Only time can tell.

I’m sure many have wondered why my blog hasn’t been updated in several months. There is a simple answer for that.

There is no news to report, good, bad, or otherwise. What this post will try to do is summarize what has happened (or not) the last few months.

My last regular reporting was in August, while I was on an internship. There has been little movement career-wise since then. Whether this is a symptom of a poor economy, disinterested employers, or a simple lack of need of new journalists, I’ll leave to the experts.

I graduated in May of 2010 in hopes of finding regular work in my chosen profession, continuing to refine the skills both in front of and behind the camera, and in print while in college. I have not been successful in that pursuit so far, as fulltime reporting positions have continued to be elusive. Perhaps in the new year that will change. One can only hope.

Until recently, I had been attempting to relocate to New York, but while I enjoyed being in quite possibly one of the greatest cities on earth during my internship, I was not able to find permanent work, and I had to return to my hometown. Living in New York is still a prospect, but I cannot financially support relocating with the promise of future employment.

Because of a lack of career movement, I’ve looked at leveraging my skills to other potential employers and I have run into another problem. I lack experience as a journalist, which makes me unappealing to many newsrooms, which I can understand. However, with respect to public-facing work of which I have 12 years and counting experience, it’s seems to be a double negative of sorts (combined a with a bachelor’s degree in communications) in the current economic climate. College Degrees and retail are apparently a bad mix right now. By default, you’re overqualified.

I recently got dropped in the second round by major shoe retailer I suspect because of my college degree. The net result is income I could use to further my abilities a journalist (equipment for example; I have a computer on it last legs that I cannot replace because I currently cannot buy a new machine; my digital journalists toolkit that I’ve been planning to build continues to be deferred because of a lack of income) won’t be there. Coupled with college debt, and the results are unpleasant.

Over the past few months I have reluctantly moved from what I want to do, to what I need to do survive until retirement age. It is wholly likely that journalism may be a dream deferred (or unlikely); I haven’t given up, and this blog will try to chronicle what I’m doing.

I’ll try to blog more regularly and get this page moving again. Stay tuned.

This is a very overdue blog update.  I’m redesigning my resume and applying to a new round of jobs in New York, Washington, Boston, and Chicago.  My ultimate goal is to move to New York (hopefully before July), and I am working on planning a trip there later this month, as a go see, and to interview for jobs. It will also help me decide which borough/neighborhood to focus on.

The interesting part about that is trying to pin down a date that I can comfortably put on cover letters (probably styled as “the week of…”) so that a date can be ironed out if I’m called out for an interview.

In other news, the portfolio aspect of things is coming along. I plan to have video projects I’ve done uploaded to my YouTube account this week. This is work I did with the Student Media Production Team, that I can showcase myself as a capable editor.

On that note, I’ve uploaded my University News stories and SLU News22 scripts to Scribd (www.scribd.com/kjohnson04) so potential employers can see my copy writing ability.

You’ll also see my Patch.com stories (University City/Clayton-Richmond Heights) show up here and at Scribd.  I’ll probably spend the weekend going through Youtube and pulling out my newscasts from News22 and cutting those down to post on my account and build an anchoring/reporting demo reel.

Lastly, I’m looking at HDV cameras on eBay to buy that I can start adding a MMJ element to stories I do for Patch.com, and making complimentary packages to go with those stories.

Keep your eyes peeled on that. I’ll have a new post soon.

When I graduated in May, I made a decision. I made a decision to relocate to New York City. I’ve found this is not a decision to go into lightly, and to be honest, I’ve be doing more prep work than anything else.

Some readers will think I’m crazy. Others will have questions. Am I going into this with my eyes open? Yes.

I too, have had some fanciful notions, a not uncommon occurrence with those who want to move to New York.  The bright lights, the people. Yes, the urge to go eastward beckons, but my Not to long ago, I found myself musing about a brownstone in Harlem. A very expensive prospect indeed, but one I think is possible.

So far, I have been applying to jobs with eye toward relocation, and then focusing on journalism jobs once relocated. I’ve decided to mix this up. I’m now applying to jobs that pertain to what I want to to do, in particular 24-hour news.  To give you an idea of where I’m applying are Patch.com (where I freelance here in St. Louis…I speak more about this in a later blog), News 12 Networks (in particular Bronx and Queens), NY1, and FiOS1.  I’m applying to jobs in print journalism as well.

To be honest, I’m in the stage of my career where I’m working on transitioning my resume from a college-media based one to a professional one. I suppose it could be rightly called a pro-sumer resume.

One of the things I’ve been keeping an eye on is the rental market in New York. I’ll confess to getting a surprise on rent. The average rent in NYC for a 1 bedroom or studio could easily garner you a reasonably sized house, so I’ve modified my approach on this as well. I’m looking chiefly at sublet rentals.  I don’t take up much space,  plus I’ll be helping a new arrival like myself.

I haven’t gotten in touch with the alumni office in NYC yet, but will soon. Even though I feel confident on my ability to familiarize myself with my surroundings quite quickly (I pride myself on an almost encyclopedic knowledge of St. Louis), I’ll need about a month or more to familiarize myself with a city that is smaller than St. Louis County, but has nearly 12 times as many people as the City of St. Louis.

Worry not. I like a  challenge. There will be more blog entries like these (some with video) over the next few months, as I try to navigate the process. You can also follow my progress through MySomeday.com

New changes to my website:

I’ve uploaded a new resume to my main site at kareemjohnson.us and portfolio materials should be being uploaded soon.

Chicago–Lewis Lazarre of the Chicago Sun Times is reporting that meteorologist Megan Glaros, who was most recently seen on New York’s WCBS is coming to Chicago to join fellow WCBS alums Steve Bartelstein and Kate Sullivan.

This comes as WBBM shuffles it anchoring lineup and replaces the low-rated “Monsters and Money in the Morning,” CBS2′s attempt to strike a different chord in morning news programs. Lazarre says that Glaros was interested in making the move back to Chicago, where she graduated from Indiana University. She will most likely end up on new, and probably traditional CBS2 morning news progam.

WBBM has been making a lot of changes with the announcement of local news legends Bill Kurtis and Walter Jacobson returning to Chicago airwaves to anchor the 6pm news, with Kate Sullivan joining Rob Johnson for the 5 and 10 pm newscasts.

Read more here:

St. Louis–Mike Garrity, one of the assignment reporters at KSDK is leaving for the East Coast to New England to work for WMUR the powerhouse Hearst ABC affiliate in Manchester New Hampshire, reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Deb Peterson.

Peterson reports that “Garrity, who has been with KSDK-TV (Channel 5) since 2007, said he believes his last day here will be Sept. 11 and that he is scheduled to start work in New Hampshire on Sept. 20.” Garrity told Peterson that he wanted to live closer to his family.

Congrats to Mike.

Send your messages to his twitter account @MSGarrity

Chicago–Steve Bartelstein, who has seen his share of controversies at WABC and WCBS in New York is transitioning from the Big Apple to the city of broad shoulders, Chicago, reports Robert Feder. Feder reports Bartelstein was

“was once fired from WABC-TV for sleeping through a news update, and later quit WCBS-TV, saying he felt “tired of this place not appreciating me for what I do for them.”’

Bartelstein joins Kate Sullivan, also of WCBS.  The reason for so much talent from New York?  Dave Friend is the former News Director at WCBS, and current VP of news operations at WBBM.

Feder thinks that Bartelstein might be headed for “Monsters and Money in the Morning,” WBBM’s response to a traditional 5 to 7 am newscast.

Read more here.

Los Angeles — The TVSpy message boards are atwitter at the removal of St. Louis-native Victoria Recano’s picture and bio removal from Tribune’s KTLA’s website. KTLA is a sister station to KPLR in St. Louis.

Recano, 34, started her TV career in St. Louis as part of Team 11 at KPLR-TV at the age of 15. then owned by Koplar Communications.  She later worked as reporter at KPLR.  Her picture on KTLA’s site has been replaced with KDNL-alum Derrin Horton. More after the break.

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Omaha, NE — I’ll have a full write-up later today, but I’m at the Region 7 Society for Professional Journalists Region 7 Conference in Omaha, Nebraska. I’ve been tweeting throughout the day at twitter.com/kjohnson04.

So follow my tweets here in Omaha and later on today before and after the flight back to St. Louis.