23-Year-Old Blogger Lectures Class

“If any of you are ever offered a job covering politics and asked to start the day before Election Day, don’t do it. It’s a bad idea.”

Jimmy Vielkind, 23 of Troy, NY, spoke to a group of journalism students tonight at UAlbany. Vielkind, former cops reporter for the Times Union, recently took a position as a blogger for politickerny.com. Vielkind covers all things upstate New York politics for the site.

Vielkind admits that his recent career choice has its risk.

Jimmy Vielkind image courtesy of timesunion.com

“I left the Times Union, bastion of stability and important part of community, to join an online media outlet that might not be around in 153 days,” said Vielkind.

Some of his colleagues at the Times Union thought he was nuts, but Vielkind would argue it was a well-reasoned move.

“Online media appeals to me. I’m convinced online media is the way to go. Every morning you wake up and get the newspaper delivered to your door, its state of the art technology as of 100 years ago,” said Vielkind. “You don’t have to just use words; you’re not constrained as a writer to just use words. It’s a more powerful medium.”

The new challenge of using photos, links, and videos to supplement his work is not the only perk of his new job. Vielkind said that during his time at the Times Union he worked the night time cop shift from 4 p.m. to midnight.

“The only people I would socialize with were the old women at the library where I would check books out in the morning,” said Vielkind.

His new job at politickerny.com offers him more regular hours.

Overall Vielkind couldn’t have seemed happier with his new job, and his optimism about the field of online journalism was inspiring to the room full of students.

“I’m seriously convinced that this is the future. As we as a society figure out how we are going to consume news and information in the future, and we as journalists are deciding how to report news in the future, I want to be a part of it,” said Vielkind.