photo: Jessica Herman
Jessica Herman is a Chicago based-journalist who has worked for many different publications, including Centerstagechicago.com, Newcity and Chicago Sun-Times. Jessica attended Northwestern University for undergraduate, where she studied English Literature. She is currently a staff writer for The Get section of Time Out Chicago magazine, where she writes two or three stories and one or two blog entries per week.
ET: How do you feel the field of journalism has changed since you first started?
JH: I was surprised at our lack of online presence [when I first came to Time Out]. The Web site wasn’t very dynamic and it was very hard to search for venues; it was very clear that there was not much of a focus on it as an online entity, it was a print publication first and foremost and they hadn’t really married the two worlds [yet.] Now, there is so much more of a focus on what we are doing online…a lot of more blogging, add-ons to articles that we are producing for the [print] magazine-there will be maybe more 15 more pictures online because they know people love clicking through a slide show. In general it’s a much more holistic, full vision of what Time Out is; the intention is to have a very integrated publication.
ET: What aspects of social media do you use in your job? How often?
JH: We [The Get] use Twitter-I think all the sections now have their own Twitter and Time Out [Chicago] also has its own Twitter that’s tweeting about stories that we’ve done, sales etc. I will use Facebook when I’m looking for sources for stories and also [to] promote some of the pieces-we are encouraged to promote the hell out of our pieces via Twitter and Facebook.
ET: You used to work at Centerstage Chicago, which is an online only publication. How is that different from working in both a print and online publication?
JH: I feel like Centerstage was much more like a city guide. It was very aware of itself as just a website, and very aware of itself in terms of usability instead of [as] a great read. The stuff that was most popular was like, “where can I find a $3 burger?”
ET: What is different about packaging material for the web?
JH: I think at this point we’re not doing any online exclusive articles… I think we haven’t quite had the manpower for it, or the time. As far as blogging goes, I think [the posts] are pretty casual in nature; we always use “I” for inserting ourselves in the piece on the blog, whereas since we are running on a weekly schedule … there are some restrictions [as far as print]. [On the blog,] you can just throw up a line and couple pictures if you think it will generate some interest.
We’ve had such a push for just putting additional features that aren’t feasible for the print publication. We can’t run 15 photos of walking through a house [in] print- [It lends itself to] more interactive features.
ET: Is there a style of storytelling that is more suited to the web than print or vice versa? For example, is the narrative mode of storytelling incompatible with the way people read on the web?
JH: I guess I feel like that's an hours-long discussion. A lot of people are going to the internet with a very specific question, [but] there are so many opportunities to jump from 'A' to 'B' to 'C'-all the links are so distracting. Even if you’ve gone in search of your one answer, or you find your answer, I think it's just so much harder to meditate on one article [or] on one juicy piece of narrative because its linked to so many other blogs. It's just a very different experience than having a piece of writing in your hand.
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