DOT-COM DOUBTS - JULY/AUGUST 2000

July/August 2000 | Contents

DOT-COM DOUBTS

II. WEIGHING THE JOB CHOICES

BY BRENT CUNNINGHAM

Fresh out of journalism school, Kirstin Blakeley had job offers from an Internet start-up and Forbes magazine. The dot-com, which hadn't launched yet, paid more, came with a tantalizing options package, and gave her more responsibility (she would be managing the site's reporters and editors in addition to writing her own stories). Forbes, of course, is a known quantity, financially secure, and has a growing Web operation of its own. Decisions, decisions.

Blakeley's father suggested she check out the dot-com's backers. Were they reputable? What was their track record in the Internet economy? She did, and was underwhelmed by what she found. Blakeley now works as a reporter at Forbes. "I think I made the right decision," she says, "particularly with the turmoil that has happened since in the Internet world. I don't worry about where Forbes will be in six months."

The Internet is not going away, and it's not as though venture capitalists have closed their wallets completely. It's just that now there's more talk of the need to look before you leap. "These days, as a prospective employee, you have less reason to be unrealistic," says Rich Gordon, who now heads the new media program at Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism after running the Miami Herald's Web operation the last four years. The new, new thing is never a sure thing. But journalists who know the online world say there are ways to make your dot-com job hunt less of a crapshoot, both in terms of discerning the financial health of a start-up and its commitment to journalism.

First, they say, be a good reporter. Ask questions. Who works there? Are they experienced journalists, or primarily folks from a marketing or techie background? Who will be your immediate boss? Who is that person's boss? "Wherever you end up, you want to be surrounded by mentors," says Erin Joyce, who recently moved from Future Banker, a print magazine in the American Banker family, to internet.com, a site that covers the Internet industry. Paul Grabowicz, director of new media at Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, says having veteran editors running the news side of a dot-com is more important than the company's financial strength. "At least then when some of the dicey things that go on at dot-coms as far as mixing journalism and marketing happen, you'll have someone who knows what the rules are," he says. "And you'll learn something."

Get a full and unambiguous description of what will be expected of you. The title of "reporter" does not always mean the same thing at a dot-com as it does at a newspaper. You may be required to know HTML and code your own stories. You might even be asked to work closely with advertisers and marketers. "Jobs are not as well-defined as in traditional media," says Gordon. "If you are interested in simply being a reporter, there are a lot of dot-com jobs that won't be appropriate. And where you draw the line is gray area." Stephen Lucey, a former pension fund manager who just graduated from Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism, says he applied for an allegedly journalistic job described as "senior writer" at a Silicon Valley start-up only to find that it was actually a corporate communications job.

On the business side, you can follow Blakeley's lead and check out the investors, see if they have a reputation for doing their homework. If the dot-com has gone public or has filed to go public, you can scour the Securities and Exchange Commission documents. You can talk to analysts and to people who have left the company, and read what the trade publications have written about your prospective employer.

Company officials probably won't give you a copy of their business plan, but they ought to be able to tell you enough about it to allow you to make an informed decision. Does it seem to make sense? Ask to meet with business side representatives as well as the editorial folks. What is the burn rate? How much money do they have left in the bank? Are there enough employees to do the work? What's the turnover rate? If people are constantly coming and going, why? What is the long-term plan to make a profit? "If you're told the bulk of their income will come from manufacturers who want to promote their products on the site, you should definitely ask questions about whether aggressive coverage of those manufacturers will be encouraged," says Gordon.

There are no guarantees, of course. But for today's young reporters, a degree of instability may not be a problem. "This generation seems to be more agile, more able to live with the instability," says Grabowicz of his students. "Of course, we are at an odd confluence of unprecedented economic expansion and the explosion of new media. If there is a real economic downturn, things might change. If there aren't twenty other dot-coms waiting to snatch you up, the prospects of your employer succeeding may matter more."

Brent Cunningham is an assistant editor at cjr.