Laura McCandlish

A journeywoman who has been from Virginia to Baltimore to Corvallis to chase her dream of being a journalist.

Laura McCandlish talked to a reporting class at Oregon State University, Wednesday night, to discuss how she got into journalism and how important blogs are to her success.

“I knew I needed to start a blog,” McCandlish said. “I needed to get my foot in and fall back on it when need be.”

McCandlish offered her advice on how the audience could improve their writing and journalistic techniques. Some of her advice was to keep blogging, do not emulate other people’s career paths, get your name out there by social networking and when you blog, choose a specific topic you can be an expert in. For example, McCandlish was interested by the food here on the west coast and in Oregon, so she decided to focus her topic on food. Because of the blog, she has landed a radio show on KBOO in Portland.

McCandlish also asked the audience what they thought about one of her blog posts. She wanted to pitch it to NPR.org (National Public Radio) and McCandlish asked how she should pitch it. She was writing notes down when the audience answered.

A local shoe store, which is booming with their very small shoe soles, brings their families into the store, even their babies. There were a few ideas that she liked, which were unique to Oregon, but the family pitch stood out to the audience. The audience agreed that NPR would like that idea the best.

McCandlish kept giving the audience advice on how to blog and how to get your product and your name out there to the world. Blogging was her main emphasis, along with getting to know as many types of media you can.

“It is important to learn many different types of media,” she said. “Journalism is very unpredictable right now.”