How to Land a Media Job After a Layoff: Get a Publicist
by Peter Kafka
Posted on December 29, 2008 at 12:13 PM PT
I’ll confess that I don’t know if Paige Ferrari, who was once a features editor at Radar Magazine, got professional PR help once she lost her job at the now-defunct magazine this fall. I do know that I can’t think of any other 26-year-old whose unemployment has been this thoroughly chronicled:
New York Times, Nov. 7: “I was talking to a friend of mine who works in the industry. He’s very wise. I said, “What should I do next?” And he said, “Get out of journalism.” He’s probably right; he’s got a good read on things. But I probably wouldn’t do anything different.”
Time Out New York, Winter Bar Guide: On her dream job: “Writing for you, editing for you, preferably not recapping The Hills for you, but—who am I kidding—that’s totally negotiable.”
New York Post, Dec. 15: “Everything everyone is reading is doom and gloom, so there is a lot of anxiety about the job market,” she said. “There are positions out there–people still need editors, writers and reporters–but now, there is a surplus of very talented and qualified people looking for the same jobs.”
However Paige Ferrari generated the flood-the-zone coverage of herself, it has worked (sort of), says the Post. The paper reports that she has “has landed a part-time gig as a Web editor:
Since negotiations haven’t been finalized, she’s keeping mum on the details. But she did say it’s a Web site that covers pop culture.
‘It’s great for me,’ said Ferrari, 26, who lives in the East Village. ‘It’s part-time, so it gives me the flexibility to freelance, choose my own projects and make my own schedule.’”
More power to her. Let’s hope that other well-publicized unemployed media people have similar luck–and that not too many more of us join their ranks.
Thanks Jeff Bercovici, one of the last men standing at Portfolio.com, for pointing this one out.
[Image Credit: New York Post]
