Paul Steinmetz, PR Director for WCSU

Paul Steinmetz, director for public relations at Western CT State University, discovered his love of writing when he took a newspaper writing class at his local California community college. It lead him to graduate from San Francisco State University, working in local papers and covering exciting stories such as the Black Panthers Huey Newton trial. However, he wanted to branch out, and he did; just for the sake of sending it, he gave in an application at the Danbury News Times all the way across the country, and to his surprise, was hired. He ended up working at the Times for 24 years, becoming the managing editor for his last ten. When he was unexpectedly fired three years ago , he came to WCSU and was hired as the school's public relations director, promoting the university, controlling the image of the school, staging campus events, and calling local media stations with press releases.

He discussed the turmoil in the newspaper industry, and the major problem behind it; the business model for the typical newspaper was completely outdated. Many newspapers got up to 30 percent profit from major ads by car dealers, department stores, and lots of smaller ads. However, with the popularity of the internet rapidly rising, many of these companies have websites of their own, eliminating the dependancy on newspapers to get the word out about their products. This equals a huge loss in revenue for the newspaper industry, and many papers across the country have been forced to shut down entirely, and almost all have cut their staff members significantly. He further added that in the next 10 to 15 years, the newspaper industry will be entirely unrecognizable, with the internet take over the functions of print papers.

Most newspaper companies, and PR positions as well, Steinmetz added, are looking for people with online experience. A good way to get said experience, according to him, was by creating a blog. A blog, as are social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, is a good way to market yourself and get people interested in what you have to say. The world is changing before our eyes, and in the future, its going to be all about the internet, so getting familiarized with it is crucial in order to obtain employment.