Spectrum participated in the 20th annual Women Opening Doors for Women (WODW) event on June 18. More than 500 young, energetic female leaders gathered for a networking reception at the ALF-CIO to kick off the event. The women then spread throughout Washington for a series of small, career-focused, dinner parties.
Spectrum was honored to host a WODW dinner party. Spectrum's dinner, "Our Voice, Our Media," focused on the changing face of journalism. Young women of diverse backgrounds came from around the city to share their ideas on the shifting communication landscape.
The guests of honor at Spectrum's dinner were speakers Patricia Murphy, author of AOL's new The Capitolist blog, and Spectrum's own Erica Anderson.
Murphy told the dinner guests about her nine years as a Capitol Hill staffer and the decision to leave it all behind and get her master's degree in journalism at Columbia University. After Columbia, Murphy spent a year as executive editor at a small magazine, but she kept noting a gap in political coverage and decided to do something about it.
Murphy wanted to see a more prominent female voice in political commentary so she created CitizenJanePolitics.com (CJP), a non-partisan political blog for women. With women's concerns in mind and her flip video camera in hand, Murphy hit the 2008 campaign trail and interviewed many of its stars, including Michelle Obama. When asked how she got so close to the candidates, Murphy responded, "I walked right up to them. It's amazing what you can do when you don't ask permission."
Murphy's new project, The Capitolist, recently saw AOL's Politics Daily site surpass POLITICO in unique viewers, according to a June 20 TechCrunch article. Beyond writing for The Capitolist and CJP these days, Murphy is also a frequent commentator on CNN and Fox News. Her takeaway message for the dinner guests: "Never let anyone tell you that you can't or won't succeed."
Erica Anderson, Senior Digital Strategist at Spectrum, told the dinner guests about her time as the DC Representative for MTV's Street Team. Anderson covered the 2008 election for MTV, focusing on issues that mattered to young voters. She also spoke about the development of her own blog, Erica-America.com.
Speaking to the ongoing changes in journalism, Anderson discussed the recent elections in Iran and the use of social media, such as Twitter, to spread news from the area. Anderson urged the dinner guests to consider their own media consumption, asking "What blogs do you read? Do you subscribe to a newspaper? How do you get your news?" The dinner guests' answers varied from the BBC to Nickelodeon (part of me hopes that this guest was joking), to the New York Times, CNN, and a long list of blogs.
The ways in which we consume news are quite obviously changing. Because of the efforts of new media leaders like Murphy and Anderson, we now have the luxury of getting our news from more targeted and personal outlets. It's impossible to know what news will look like ten years in the future. But for now, it's "our voice, our media."
Marcia Newbert, Account Coordinator, Public Affairs
