luber: hey everyone – marc luber here - todayon jd careers out there we’re looking at what it’s like to use your law backgroundas a journalist – so stick around! [theme song] alright, today’s guest is jill schachnerchanen, who left the practice of law for a career in journalism. today she’s the assistantmanaging editor of the aba journal and she also teaches journalism at columbia collegein chicago. as you may already know, at jdcot, we explore career paths both in and out oflaw to help you find a fulfilling career that fits you and help you succeed using your lawdegree. today, jill’s gonna tell us all about working in journalism, so let’s getstarted. jill, welcome to jdcot! jill: thanks, marc, it’s good to be here.
luber: definitely, thank you for being here.and jill, i’m going to ask you to tell us all about this path, who makes a good fitfor it, how to break in and stuff like that. but first, tell us, what do you as a legaljournalist? jill: well i’m an assistant managing editorat the aba journal of the american bar association and we’re a monthly publication that goesout to about half a million lawyers every month and we like to say we cover the law,the legal profession and trends in the law from wall street to main street nationwide. what that translates to as a legal journalistmay mean something different every single day. i, as an editor, help plan the magazine,help assign stories, actually edit stories
and i’m also taking on some new roles, asmany journalists are these days, in trying to monetize our editorial content. so lookingfor business development opportunities, we’re expanding into programming, seminars and thelike, so it’s always a jam-packed day; it means lots of different things. but the essence of being a legal journalistis really being a reporter or an editor and covering the law, whether that’s a supremecourt decision or trends in the law, writing profiles of interesting people in the lawand just covering the industry in general. luber: interesting. so can you describe tous how the role of editor would differ from the role of reporter, both in the day-to-daywork as well as the lifestyle of the job?
jill: yeah, that’s a great question. letme just start, a reporter generally is somebody who, really, his primary responsibility iswriting and they may have responsibility for coming up with their own story ideas or takingassignments from editors and doing the story idea. and they may have a certain quota everyday if you’re working for a daily newspaper, for example. you may have a quota of storiesyou have to write every day; you have to cover a beat, which means a certain topic or subjectarea and turn in a certain number of stories. working for a monthly magazine, we’re probablya bit slower pace; we don’t have as many stories but we’re also thinly staffed likeeverybody else is these days, so we’re doing more with less.
as an editor i, on occasion, write. i guessi have the benefit and the luxury of being a little bit choosy if i want to write somethingor i want to assign it out. i have a lot of responsibilities, planning…actually editing,taking copy in - raw copy that comes in and working with it and rewriting it and workingwith reporters. i do that on a daily basis. and a constant responsibility to come up withcontent for the magazine. i’m not the only editor; we all have those responsibilities,but it’s a lot of pressure to always come up with current, interesting copy and thatrequires a lot of time, research, talking to people, being out in the street. luber: alright, so that should give you alittle taste of what it’s like to work in
journalism. if you’re watching on youtubeand this was helpful, please give us the thumbs up! and if you want to see the full interviewwith jill, come on over to jdcot.com - i’ll throw a link right there – and you’llhear jill talk about things like a typical day, who makes the right fit for this path,how to break in and lots more. make sure you join our membership – so that way you getaccess to all the helpful video content and the transcripts. thanks again for watchingeverybody. i’m marc luber and i’ll see you soon.
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