Naomi Reiter

Tools of My Trade: Open Source Options for Today's Journalist

As many of you know, like many editors and journalists in 2009, I was the victim of this "Great Recession" in January and am now only partially employed and freelancing. And if you're a writer, you know that you can't just stop writing or else your head might pop off and your fingers cramp into unsightly claws until you shrivel up and die.

Thus, I started this blog as an online portfolio, a way to keep my skills keen, and, for the most part, as an outlet for that driving need to write. For the last eight months, I've sort of just been waiting for the economy to bounce back so that advertisers will once again get into bed with publishers and I can go back to doing what I do. However, I think we're all getting the picture that many things in publishing have changed for good, including our role as journalists. 

What's an Editor to Do?

For one thing, I now see that, without an abundance of editing jobs available, it's my responsibility to find a way to apply my pretty specific skill set to another industry. Let's see: I can craft sentences and string them together to tell a story; I'm pretty handy with the Adobe suite of editing tools, including InDesign, InCopy and Photoshop; I can get people to talk to me and tell me their story...it's not exactly surgery or rocket science, but that's stuff I can work with, right?

As long as I can remain flexible and learn new skills, skills like simple HTML code, and SEO tactics, and marketing using social media--that's the key. Because one of the industries that is doing okay, and that demands my skill set is marketing. Marketing is one of the reasons why publishing is actually languishing. Marketers are rendering publishing redundant as they more often create content in-house rather than partner with the bloated publishing industry.

Vitamin Vodka Infuses NYC

Am I dreaming? Could it be true? Will I really be able to slurp down martinis and improve my health? 

According to Lotus Vodka ("chock full of your daily dose of vitamins"), I can. This is big news for me because, you see, I am one of those guilt-ridden revelers—two parts Bacchanalia and two parts neurotic health nut.

For every ciggy I sneak at 1am on a West Village sidewalk, I ever more diligently read the ingredients in my muesli the next morning. If this offering from CEO and founder Rob Bailey proves to be legit, I may have found the perfect balance for these two opposing facets of my personality.