Media Profession Lessons from Nicole Crescenzi

The brand-new bright-eyed journalist has a long path ahead of her and it’s more than a walk in the park.  The journalism industry demands confidence, stamina, and determination if one is to succeed and it will test our resolves.  This sounds frightening, of course, but there’s reward in facing our fears.  Nicole Crescenzi, a new full-time community reporter for Black Press Media, talks about the internship opportunities in which she participated and how they contributed to the necessary development of her career.

Nicole started out in journalism through tapping into the freelance market during her high school years then obtaining her degree in Anthropology at the University of Victoria.  She then completed an MA in Journalism at Carlton University which pointed her in the direction of internships and casual employment in television, radio, magazines, newspapers, and digital media.  Her educational experience speaks to all of us studying in this field, “And, of course, after [your education] you want to make sure you’re having a job.  But before that, you got to do a lot of free work.”

Herein lies the struggle we face as media students and professionals.  The ease and convenience of the online job databases tempts us to upload our credentials to anonymous career advertisements in hopes that we stand out from the crowd.  The reality, however, is that we need to go outside our comfort zones and talk to the people doing the hiring.  And sometimes, in order to get into the market, we must build exposure instead of dollars.

Nicole views her unpaid experience as worthwhile because it gave her valuable resume ammunition and great networking opportunities.  The Camosun Co-op and Career Services team reminds us that media-related professions are staffed 70% of the time through networking and relationship building so it makes sense for us to face the fear of interaction.

The interactivity of her internships resulted in Nicole’s eventual hire to CBC Radio as a casual production associate.  This was still not a full-time gig but again she speaks to the power of the connection, “…so despite not being financially very worthwhile, initially, it can be later if you make sure to really use your experience and foster those kinds of networks and relationships.”  This casual position gave her the confidence and resume nourishment to pursue the full-time community reporter position with Black Press Media.

Internships, however, were not the end all be all of Nicole’s journalism experience.  Her freelance career was long established before hitting up the CBC and the opportunities to sell her work to a variety of magazines contributed partly to her success (and her livelihood.)  Nicole attributes a lot of her success to the community she built during unpaid and casual paid employment opportunities.  It is worthwhile for us to take these lessons to heart and step into the intimidating world of occupational networking and exposure-based employment.