Fresh from her BBC documentary series “The Virtual Revolution” Dr Aleks Krotoski came to Wired Sussex’s “Make it in Media” job fair to talk to the students, graduates, and digital media enthusiasts about her trajectory into technology and journalism.

She started by describing her New Orleans origins and Type A parents, and I did appreciate her Lex Luthor reference as she described her megalomaniac tendencies. Being a workaholic was a recurring theme and seemed integral to her achievements.

Alex attributes much of her success to her unusual multi-faceted accent, an odd mix of American and English that seems to intrigue producers and lends itself well to voice-overs. Her initial foray into broadcasting journalism was securing herself a place on a BBC internship programme. The most useful advice she gave regarding this was telling the crowd if they ever find themselves in a similar position, to type up all notes at the end of the day and leave it on their boss’s desk as a way of showing their dedication and organisation.

The best advice came towards the end. The sentence “We are the culmination of our experiences for better or worse” struck a chord, as did “Make stuff, do stuff, have the impetus to produce and create”. I think this was the best advice and if you boiled everything down there is no catch all action that will help you “break into media”. Simply, you must work hard, be determined and not be disheartened by the rejection letters. Learn from them and keep trying, apply for internships, short courses, work experience and take advantages of the opportunities that present themselves to you.

I think it would have been more helpful to hear about how exactly she gained a place on the BBC internship programme and some specific details of the inner workings of the Beeb and what they have taught her. This would have been more useful than admitting that she’s been very lucky, which may be true but it doesn’t help aspiring media students to break into the industry.

Before the floor was opened for questions from the audience the good doctor imparted this little gem, “As an academic it is our job to unpick broad sweeping generalisations” I think this is an excellent piece of advice to take away, particularly for any aspiring journalists or writers. We must always dig deeper, never give into the easiness of vagaries if we truly want to understand how the world works. As Ludwig Mies van der Rohe once said, “God is in the details”.

Check Dunk’s recording of the event.

Posted on Monday, March 8th, 2010 at 1:37 pm in Industry News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.