Society for Young Journalists

Since the Jayson Blair fiasco, newsrooms have examined the role of young journalists. Several young reporters became concerned that their voices were being left out of the conversation, and decided to form a new discussion group and organization for journalists under 35.

So four young journalists — Denver Post reporters Chris Frates and Elizabeth Aguilera, The Washington Post‘s Matthew C. Sheehan and The New York Times’ Jennifer Medina — got together and started The Society for Young Journalists.

Within a month of sending an e-mail to a few dozen friends, more than 600 journalists signed up to be part of an e-mail discussion list. More than 800 messages have been sent out since June on topics ranging from media ownership to dateline policies.

“This network of young people is a forum for sharing intelligence on everything from job openings to beat writing,” Frates wrote in an article on Poynter Online last month. “We’re working to create a website listing contact info for every member so if they’re stuck in Wichita covering a tornado or in NYC interviewing, they can find some friendly natives.”

So far the group’s website, http://www.youngjournos.org, is pretty rudimentary — there’s a discussion forum, but that’s about it. The real discussion, though, has been on the group’s e-mail list.

You can subscribe to the e-mail list and read old messages at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/youngjournos. Or you can just send an e-mail to youngjournos-subscribe@yahoogroups.com to join the conversation.

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