Wanted: Smart, hard-working

I'm a print guy. I understand words and columns and photos. That's still photos - not ones that move.

So when Nick Brennan came to the paper's senior editors a year ago and started talking about making videos for our website, it sounded a little crazy.

And complicated. We needed videographers, broadcast reporters, video cameras and editing software. And I knew absolutely nothing about video.

But Nick, then a deputy news editor, was confident he could pull it off.

It seemed like a lot for a freshman film student. But we OK'd the project and gave Nick what little support we had - mostly time and encouragement.

Now, our video desk is producing a video or two a week, including a video of Ultra Violet Live on Tuesday that blew my word-centric mind. The desk has two editors and its own equipment. It's still growing, but it's already moved from just being one guy's experiment to an playing an important part in what we do at WSN.

Meanwhile, Nick's now our deputy managing editor for online content. (There are perks to being right.)

Being the student paper doesn't only mean that we cover news relevant to students. WSN is a teaching newspaper. A large part of what we do is give students opportunities they can't get anywhere else.

Our reporters get to write for a daily newspaper in New York City. Our photographers get to see their work in print. Our columnists get to speak on behalf of America's dream school. Our editors get to hire, manage and lead a staff. Nick got to take his dream and run with it.

We print 10,000 copies a day and get about 200,000 page views a month online. We're the most prominent platform for student work on campus.

It's one of the coolest things we do, but it's also fraught with misconceptions.

All the time, people tell me they didn't think they'd get to write for a semester or two after starting here; actually, we give people stories on day one. A grad student once told me one of her professors said WSN was run by militant undergrads who don't accept graduate students' work. (We do, and that grad student went on to be deputy copy chief. But I'm on the lookout for a "militant undergrad" hat.)

At WSN, we're looking for people with two traits: smart and hard-working. After that, the rest just comes.

Never written a newspaper story before? We'll teach you. Lots of our most successful staff members started from scratch. There are lots of cool stories at NYU, and we want to cover more.

Hate writing? No sweat. We need photographers, cartoonists, graphic artists, videographers, broadcast reporters, web designers, programmers - and just about everything else. There's no such thing as a skill we can't use.

So if you're smart, hardworking and interested, e-mail recruitment@nyunews.com or visit www.nyunews.com/workforus/. It's never too late to join.

After all, we're always looking for another Nick.


http://media.www.nyunews.com/