The University of Oklahoma • Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Comunication
Features: Alumni Applause
From OU to Wall Street
Alumna becomes interactive news reporter at WSJ.comSPJ JOB FAIR: Alumna Jennifer Johnson returned to Oklahoma from her work at WSJ.com to deliver a keynote speech the 2006 SPJ Job Fair. A 2002 graduate, Johnson gave students timely advice about getting their first professional jobs.
Jennifer Johnson has stayed busy since graduating from Gaylord College four years ago with her bachelor’s degree in journalism.
She has been an intern at The Boston Globe, earned a master’s degree from Columbia University, served as assistant news editor of The Muskogee Phoenix and, finally, taken a position at one of the most powerful newspapers in the United States: The Wall Street Journal. She is an interactive news writer for the online edition, WSJ.com.
Just five months after Johnson began working at The Muskogee Phoenix in November 2003, she heard about an opening at WSJ.com and acted immediately.
“I sent my résumé in on Sunday, got a phone call on Monday, flew to New York on Friday and was offered a job by the next Monday,” Johnson says. “It was a whirlwind experience.”
Johnson began at WSJ.com as an interactive news assistant in April 2004. She was promoted to interactive news reader and then again in December 2005 to her current position.
“My title is interactive news writer, in part, because that is how our union organizes positions for salary purposes,” Johnson says. “My primary job is as an editor and producer for the Web site, but I occasionally write.”
Jamie Heller, deputy managing editor of WSJ.com and Johnson’s boss, says Johnson displays a deep interest in news and brings strong skills to her position.
“She has excellent news judgment that she applies in editing, writing and reporting,” Heller says. “Whether she’s working on a piece about elections, Social Security policy, Medicare or immigration, she identifies what’s interesting and important.”
Johnson works a typical copy-editing shift: 4 p.m. to midnight. During this time, she and her colleagues keep the Web site as fresh as possible. She monitors the wire services, sometimes frantically piecing together staff copy on breaking news stories. At the same time, Johnson and many other evening producers are working on their own stories, interactive graphics, slide shows and regular columns.
She also is in charge of training new staff, acquainting them with the software and their daily tasks. On top of that, Johnson writes about politics and policy, recently contributing to WSJ.com’s coverage of a Medicare drug benefit story.
“Online media intimidate a lot of people, but the basic rules still apply,” Johnson says. “Online news outlets will always need good writers and editors, but they’ll have to be a little more tech savvy.”
Johnson, a self-proclaimed “Web nerd,” says she had no trouble adapting her print skills to working online.
“Jennifer was the first person I knew that had her own personal Web page,” says 2003 journalism graduate Kayte Spillman, assistant vice president for corporate communications for Bank of Oklahoma in Tulsa and Johnson’s former classmate.
“She was self taught in a lot of those areas because she had such a personal passion for it.”
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