But a quick read of his bio makes it seem as though Brian Hecht worked three jobs simultaneously to get where he is today. Hecht wears two heavy, staple-studded crowns these days, as president and CEO of The Electronic Newsstand as well as online editor of The New Republic magazine. Two years ago, I was getting coffee for Barbara Walters at ABC News. Most of the students asked questions about the future of traditional newspapers jobs such as reporting and editing, concerned that shrinking staffs at dailies meant limited post-graduation opportunities. Mr. Media scoffed, suggesting that by limiting their view of the world to print media, such students couldn't see the neon forest for the electrified trees.
Online publishing means more jobs and wider, different opportunities using the same skills.
Tomorrow's journalism graduates will only be contained by their imaginations and entrepreneurial spirit, not the number of openings at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer or Tampa Tribune . Brian Hecht is a perfect example of that. In his first online job, organizing editorial content for the nascent twentysomething site, Tripod , Hecht was at work a month before he even saw the Web for the first time. Even though I wasn't entirely sure what that meant. Hecht imagined he'd be a journalist now.