Jobs you'll have as an editor.

The job title and role of "editor" often means much more than its literal definition.

A list of jobs you might have while you're editing a publication:

• Intern
• Writer
• Reporter
• Copy Editor
• Assignment Editor
• Photo Editor
• Special Projects Editor
• Researcher
• Administrative assistant
• Sales account executive
• Product manager
• UX designer
• Creative director
• Customer support specialist
• "Evangelist"
• Marketer
• Communications director
• Audience acquisition specialist
• Social media coordinator
• Event planner

Call it a different kind of journalism (perhaps publishing) education. But when you're responsible for keeping your ad pages (or pageviews, or unique users) up, you'll find yourself wearing more and more caps in an effort to meet your goals.

Journalism As An Elite Profession? Not According To Steve Dunleavy

Longtime New York Post-man Steve Dunleavy on journalism:

“When I first came around, there was some very good newspapermen in New York,” Dunleavy said. “But increasingly, they started leaning on this Columbia School of Journalism thing. That you wanted your mom to be proud. That it was a profession.

"Journalism is a craft, like being a master plumber. We wore white collars, but we were blue collar.”

Is this the same today? (Personally, I don't think so.) Discuss.

Do You Feel Burned Out? Journalists Are At Risk, Study Says

According to a study by Dr. Scott Reinardy of Ball State University [via Gawker]:

"With a moderate rate of exhaustion, a high rate of cynicism and a moderate rate of professional efficacy, burnout among journalists demonstrate higher rates of burnout than previous work. Additionally, journalists expressing intentions to leave the profession...demonstrated high rates of exhaustion and cynicism, and moderate rates of professional efficacy, making them “at-risk” for burnout. Also, 74.5 percent of journalists 34 and younger...expressed intentions to either leave newspaper journalism or answered “don’t know.” The most “at-risk” to burnout appear to be young copy editors or page designers working at small newspapers."

What does this all mean? Time for more sunlight, like those photographers. Oh, and this:

"Perhaps lost in this evolutionary period of newspaper journalism is the news worker. When he or she is no longer able, or no longer willing, to provide quality journalism, the journalism of crisis won’t be found on Wall Street or in the circulation data. It’ll be found in the newsroom."

Happy Thursday.

Aren't we all citizen journalists, by default?

Today's food for thought:

Who do journalists work for? Themselves, their employers, their readers, their country, their mothers?

Many journalists instinctually say the readers or listeners -- the citizens. But we're citizens, too.

So why do mainstream media, big-J journalists section themselves off -- i.e. "we're the journalists, they're the readers and listeners?" when we're all "citizens"?

Doesn't that make us citizen journalists, too, by definition?

Something to think about next time you hear someone talk about a "citizen journalist" as a separate entity.