SOUTH FLORIDA – The National Association of Black Journalists South Florida operates to serve, educate and empower communities within Broward and Miami-Dade counties. For nearly four decades, the regional chapter of NABJ has united journalists, media professionals, and students who seek diversity and excellence within the industry.
We caught up with Terrell Forney – NABJ South Florida Vice President/ Reporter with WPLG TV ABC Local 10 News. He shared some helpful tips that emerging journalists can use when they are interviewing for the next job.
5 tips to rock your next interview
- Be yourself: The hard part is over. You’ve already gotten the attention of the hiring manager. The next step is to show up and introduce them to the best possible version of yourself. Dress the part, speak the part, and most importantly- arrive early.
- Be present: Maintain eye contact, listen intently, and actively engage in conversation. Remember to silence your phone- a simple social media alert can be distracting and change the temperature of the room.
- Be inquisitive: After all, you want to know if the position is a good fit for you, too, right? Walk through the door with a set of general questions in mind that you can ask throughout the course of the interview.
- Be informed: Do your research on the company to familiarize yourself with its history and know the major players of the company. (President/CEO/General Manager, etc.) This will help prove that you are serious about being part of the team.
- Be Vulnerable: The traditional questions of ‘What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? & Tell me about yourself are likely to come up at some point within the interview. In each of your responses, it is best to highlight your skills that match the job description. Even your ‘weakness’ can be flipped into a “quasi-weakness”. For example, you are a perfectionist… sometimes you carry your work tasks home, or you’re striving to improve skills on certain computer-based programs and social media. The bottom line, you are selling yourself while trying to convince the company why you can be an integral part of the team.
NABJ South Florida Mission
The mission of NABJ-South Florida is being fulfilled in many ways, including:
- Bolstering relationships among black journalists and media-related professionals.
- Through facilitating annual career and media workshops to expand job opportunities to aspiring minority journalists, as well as providing professional development and training.
- Providing scholarships for high school and college students, including the Rochelle Bridges Memorial Scholarship, the Florida International University Scholarship, and the Dwight Lauderdale Scholarship.
- Educating South Florida residents in the most effective manner to obtain media coverage for important issues and events in their neighborhood.
- Through partnering with local organizations, such as the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center in Hollywood, to impact South Florida’s communities in various capacities.
- Through fostering support to community commitments, including the University of Miami High School Journalism Workshop, the Florida Memorial University Career Day, and various other annual engagements.
- Through advocacy, NABJ-South Florida works hard to ensure fair and unbiased media coverage of issues that are important to minority populations in the region.
- NABJ-South Florida provides media outlets with an inclusive resource of professional journalists of color to help ensure audiences receive an accurate and unbiased “full picture.”
For more information about NABJ South Florida, visit; https://
Follow on IG-@nabjsouthflorida.
