Society of Professional Journalists Chapter George Mason University

On Friday, October 6th, GMU SPJ had the pleasure of touring the Washington Post. When we arrived, we were greeted by Post reporter Maura Judkis. She gave us a tour of the office, including the wall of Pulitzer Prizes. We got there at around 9am so it was fairly quiet because as Maura noted, most employees start coming in at 10am. She then took us to a conference room where she invited 3 other reporters in to share their career stories with us. They were all very different stories of how they ended up at the same place. They mentioned how much the newspaper world has changed over the past few years and how much it will change as we enter the journalism field. We learned about the Washington Post transformation under the current owner, Jeff Bezos. They also told us about the importance of digital and how that has become a major focus for their company. Another thing that we were surprised to hear was about the importance of coding . They said that it's definitely something journalist

NBC Washington Social Media Producer and On-Air Contributor Brittany Johnson! For our 9/26 meeting, we had the pleasure of meeting the Social Media Producer/On-Air Contributor from NBC Washington, Brittany Johnson! She started off by giving us background information about her life. In 2013, she graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in English. In college she began a blog and had amazing internships all throughout her time at UMD. Every summer she interned for media companies such as E! News in Los Angeles, MTV, TMZ, WKYS and Sirius XM. Once she graduated college, she was ready to find a career and enter the work force!                 She stressed the importance of networking. Once she got out of college, she knew she had to "create a job for herself." One day she was at an NBC at charity event and she met someone who she gave her contact information to. Then, 3 months later Ms. Johnson was contacted by NBC and was scheduled for an interview.