This is the inaugural post of the Meridian Collective. As of today, the collective includes Serena Renner, Will Parson and Jackie Snow. While we still have a lot to iron out in terms of what we hope to accomplish with this collective, we do have a lovely mission statement, which is as follows:

“Meridian is a collective of young journalists with a passion for telling stories through any medium necessary. We find inspiration in our daily lives and use words, photos, video and new media to bring the world to others. Meridian is as much a conduit as it is a vessel; our goal is to create an active community to help like-minded journalists grow, develop and promote their own work. We encourage each other’s artistic vision and use our individual talents to strengthen the group. Our skills are varied yet we share a common purpose — to inspire, connect and use journalism as a vehicle to promote social consciousness across the globe.”

We will use this blog to share the trials and tribulations that go along with entering the journalism market. We won’t, however, whine about the doom and gloom state of journalism today or the world at large. There are other places for that. Nor will we shout our opinions over the multitude of other more senior journalists. We will, however, tell the backstories behind our images and articles to share the adventures we as journalists go through to get our stories out to the world. In other words, we will record the process of writing pitch letters and our efforts to get published. We will share our interview triumphs and mishaps, our composition and lighting techniques, video editing, and the lengths we go through to get that close-up image or perfect quote. We hope this blog will flourish into a forum for young journalists to network, share inspiration and receive advice. So please visit, comment and introduce yourselves. We look forward to what the collective process can achieve.

Expect good things.

–Meridian Collective