Kirsten Miller is the Interactive Manager and Senior Web Producer at Fox Chicago News. She is in charge of the daily content operations of myfoxchicago.com. She is also an adjunct lecturer at DePaul University and teaches Online Journalism.
Miller started her career in Seattle working at a trade magazine. Once she started grad school a new media caught her eye and that is when she went into online journalism.
Miller received her Master's degree in New Media journalism from Northwestern's University Medill School of Journalism. She also teaches at graduate students there on multimedia journalism skills. Miller also keeps up with the buzz online by using Facebook and Twitter.
Q: Why did you decide to leave the trade magazine?
A: I was getting "frustrated with the timeliness and that things were out of date and it drove me absolutely bonkers." She then decided to look into grad school programs because of the market in Seattle wasn't at its best. She originally was looking into going to newspaper
Q: What made you choose online journalism?
A: It was a new media that caught her eye. "I honestly didn't know what it entails, but I'm going to do it because I'm sure it's much more fast paced than newspapers and I was right."
Q: What do you offer your online journalism students?
A: Miller explained that every professor has their own expertise and also shares hers; "Mine is how users get information and how they consume information online."
Q: What do you believe is the future of online journalism and what does that mean for print and broadcast?
A: "For the past couple of years I've been saying it's going to get bigger and it's going to get smaller." She goes on to explain that, "People are going to start using their TV's as a computer monitor... so they can browse the internet while they watch TV." She also goes on to say that people are using their mobile devices and their mobile browsers to view the news instead of applications. "Users certainly demand information the way they want it when they want it." "People will determine how the industry will shape out."
Q: What advice would you give students who are currently studying journalism?
A: "Focus and learn a certain beat... yet be a jack of all trades... learn to shoot, edit, write, etc..."
Miller also advises the students focusing on online journalism to intern for Web sites. "Every job is going to want to know how you're going to contribute to digital effort, and I mean digital web not digital TV." She also says that being able to carry certain equipment and being able to use it really helps students with "backpack journalism."
Q: What do you believe DePaul University offers journalism students that other schools might not?
A: "The fact that there is a downtown campus, and most of the communication courses are taught in downtown." She also mentions the new building built for the College of Communication on 14 E. Jackson.
Another thing DePaul offers is, "the up-to-date equipment that DePaul now has that will be helpful to journalism students to understand the technology the industry is using today."
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