Kim Osorio came to speak at Newhouse on September 19 thanks to the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. She is currently the Editor-in-Chief for The Source, a hip-hop magazine. After college, Kim began freelance writing for various magazines and publishers then started moving into digital media. She began working at The Source in 2000 as a music editor and made her way up to becoming the first female Editor-in-Chief. She left in 2005 but returned to the magazine in 2012.
One of the major things that is part of her story is her lawsuit filed against the company. She was fired after filing a complaint of gender discrimination. The court decided that she was fired because she didn’t take her complaint email back and she won that part of the suit. In her presentation though she didn’t dwell on or talk about this issue very much because she wanted to talk about moving on and how she overcame this obstacle. This occurrence has been a major part of her story so I’m sure she’s tired of talking about it and dwelling on it however I would have liked to hear more details on the situation since I don’t know much about it.
One part of her presentation that I liked was when she was talking about the media’s transition from print to digital. The Internet is taking over many companies and in a number of ways and this is our main way of getting connected with newspapers, magazines, articles, etc. It’s difficult for us as journalists because bloggers are becoming the new journalists. They don’t verify facts or edit or re-edit content, they just hear of a story, write it and post it, which is what people like. She said this is showing us that we need to get into a much faster way of approaching and writing articles and stories because people want almost immediate information distribution. However, she did say that many people still like having a physical copy of a magazine to read and it is many artists’ dream still to be on the cover of a certain popular magazine. I like that she mentioned this because in a digital and electronic world, it’s nice that the print industry still means something to some people and it’s an aspect that I don’t often think of. Hearing Kim’s presentation was inspiring because of all the obstacles she had to overcome to get where she is but I think it’s important, and a good reminder, that journalism is hard work and we need to be ready to face difficulties in our careers and in our lives.