Video

IIJ Presents 

Finding Journalism-Adjacent Freelance Work

Learn how to use transferable skills to find work in content marketing, PR, or communications, and how to adjust to the different demands of this work. 
This video is free to all. 
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Key Takeaways

  • How to get yourself in front of marketing, PR and communications clients
  • How to handle conflicts of interest, set rates and navigate contracts
  • What kinds of agencies and organizations are looking to hire freelance journalists

About this panel

  • Friday, December 13th, 2024. 
  • 9am PT / 12pm ET
  • Virtual
  • 75 minutes
  • Free
  • Recorded 
Journalists possess an abundance of transferable skills. Learn how to find work in content marketing, branding, communications and other fields that are adjacent to journalism, and how to adjust to the different demands of this work. Panelists will discuss how to network to good clients, handling yourself ethically, and what kinds of organizations are eager to hire journalists. 

Who is this panel for? 

Freelance journalists looking to supplement their income from journalism. 
Meet the moderator

Michelle Faust Raghavan

Michelle Faust Raghavan is the founder of Claridad Media, a newsroom consulting firm, and is currently researching best practices to improve retention of journalists of color in public media. Michelle is an award-winning journalist, editor, newsroom consultant and a regular managing editor with the Next Generation Radio project. As a policy reporter and radio host in public media member stations around the U.S., they advanced solutions, service and participatory journalism practices. Michelle later developed and implemented diversity, equity and inclusion strategy as the Solutions Journalism Network’s equity initiative manager. Michelle was recently a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford.
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Meet the panelist

Ricardo Baca

founder and CEO of Grasslands

Ricardo Baca launched Grasslands: A Journalism-Minded Agency® in 2016 to work directly with business leaders in highly regulated CPG industries, from cannabis and psychedelics to good and beverage. Ricardo Baca is a 20-year veteran journalist and cannabis futurist, widely respected in both modern media and drug-policy circles. He was appointed The Denver Post’s first-ever cannabis editor in 2013 and founded news vertical The Cannabist, where he extensively covered the advent of the U.S. adult-use cannabis market and related issues around the world, as seen in the feature documentary Rolling Papers.
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Meet the PANELIST

Mary Melton

editorial director at Godfrey Dadich and editor-at-large at Alta Journal

Mary Melton is an award-winning writer, editor, and podcaster based in Los Angeles who runs an editorial consultancy firm, Smakdab. She is Editor-at-Large for Alta Journal, the quarterly publication about California and the West, and she serves as Editorial Director at the design-strategy firm Godfrey Dadich Partners. During her long tenure as Editor-in-Chief of Los Angeles magazine, she led the team to 12 National Magazine Award nominations and three wins. She also served as Vice President/Editorial Director for the company’s publishing group, overseeing the editorial direction, redesigns, and digital relaunches of Texas Monthly, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and Orange Coast magazines.
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Meet the panelist

Stacy Brooks Whatley

Chief Communications & Marketing Officer, American Counseling Association

Stacy Brooks Whatley is an award-winning communications, marketing and content strategist with more than 20 years of experience in association communications. As Chief Communications and Marketing Officer at the American Counseling Association (ACA), she oversees strategic communications and marketing efforts, development of a bi-monthly member magazine Counseling Today (distribution 60K), media relations, social media, website content strategy and a publishing portfolio that includes seven scholarly counseling journals and ACA’s book publishing program.
Prior to her time at ACA, Stacy served as marketing & communications director at the American Physiological Society, where she also served as editor-in-chief of The Physiologist Magazine. Earlier in her career, Stacy worked in communications roles at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and Ogilvy Public Relations.
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The Institute for Independent Journalists

The Institute for Independent Journalists is an education, professional development, and mutual support organization for independent journalists, focusing on Black, Indigenous and people of color. Our mission is financial and emotional sustainability for independent journalists of color, through community learning, innovation and advocacy.
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