Last month, I gave a talk to some student journalists from Ontario and Quebec who gathered in St. Henri as part of a regional conference of Canadian University Press.

I occasionally get asked to talk to students, and like most professional journalists I’m happy to do so, because it gives me a chance to help others and because it totally inflates my ego to see so many people look up to me.

As it happens someone was there with a camera and recorded the whole thing.

About half of the talk (which is in English but has questions answered in English and French) has been posted to YouTube in three parts (keep in mind I was low on sleep and didn’t have enough time to prepare a script or even a list of talking points, so you’ll hear a lot of “uhh”s and awkward pauses – the question period is better):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niePeA1NhEk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbEpTAJkAtY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0KCizHTCYg

I was asked to talk about “online freelancing”, but as I explain right off the bat there isn’t really much of a difference between online and regular freelancing, except (usually) for the pay.

I turned on YouTube’s transcription service on that first video, and the first words out of my mouth get recognized as this:

“Service to the following online freelancing outsourcing harvest session … really ridiculous”

Sounds about right.

I reference a few things in the talk that I should link to here:

• The Twitter account of Basem Boshra, arts editor for The Gazette
• Thoughts on social media policies
• The awful first conversation between me and Martin Spalding

Last call for interns

It’s not part of the videos uploaded to YouTube, but I also talked a bit about my internship application to The Gazette.

The deadline for applications for next summer’s interns is coming up Dec. 16. Applications (cover letter, CV and up to five clippings) for jobs as reporters and copy editors (print and online) can be sent to city editor Michelle Richardson (The Gazette, 1010 Ste. Catherine St. W., Suite 200, Montreal Quebec H3B 5L1). The jobs are full-time for 10-12 weeks somewhere between early June and mid-September, paid at 80% of the starting salary of the position, which works out to a decent pay for a student. It’s open to people who are university students in the current academic year.

Applicants need a driver’s license and need to be bilingual (i.e. able to speak, listen and read in French).

The full posting (PDF) is posted on Concordia’s journalism department website along with postings for other internships.

This internship is how I got started, and look at me now!

Oh, wait…