Last night, SPJ DePaul hosted a Music Panel in the Communications Building Theater. The Panel consisted of moderator, Loud Loop Press co-founder, Richard Giraldi and 4 panelists. SPJ provided food and drinks as around 40-50 students listened and took in opinions and information from the knowledgable panel.
The panel was made up of Jamie Black from ChicagoVerseUniteD and Dynasty Podcasts, Neptali Figueroa, president of RWIM Chicago, Anne Hobul, Transmission Editor at Gapers Block and lastly, Amy Phillips of Pitchfork.
The panelists all come from a background in Chicago music and answered questions about social media, Rahm Emanuel, music festivals and more. They all gave off some great quotes, as you can find if you check out my twitter from last night; I live tweeted the event along with SPJ, found at #SPJchat.
My personal favorite quote of the night was when Amy Phillips said, “Branding yourself is very important, when people know they can trust your taste, your taste becomes your brand.”
Phillips makes a valid point with this quote that may not only apply to journalists, but people of all professions.
Another good one from Phillips was, “If you want to maintain your integrity as a journalist, you can’t write about your friends.”
All 5 people speaking last night did a wonderful job answering the questions on how they thought it would best help to inform aspiring music journalists. SPJ gives special thanks to Katie Karpowicz and Ali Trumbull who organized the event.
Jamie Black answering questions at last nights panel.
Photo by Lauren Camplin