Pocket for Writers
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We love hearing from professionals who use Pocket to enhance their work, whether it’s to stay current on industry news, collect career advice, or pursue another interest or passion.
For this second installment of “For Your Back Pocket” (see our inaugural post), we had the pleasure of interviewing four accomplished members of the media. Read on and be inspired!
Lauren Sullivan, Digital Producer and Editor, The Today Show
It’s Lauren Sullivan’s job to keep up with breaking stories and social media—she helps manage The Today Show‘s website and Facebook page. But that doesn’t mean she gets to read all day: “I spend my day covering breaking news, so I have no time to really dig into the stories. I want to get to it all, but I rarely have time.”
Previously, Lauren would add bookmarks or email herself links to try to keep up with everything she wanted to read, but she never got back to them. When a friend at The Huffington Post recommended using Pocket instead, she found it was exactly what she was looking for.
Lauren uses her commute home to catch up on good reads. She’ll typically save anything that’s “relevant and exciting at the time,” like long pieces from The Atlantic, including “The Dark Power of Fraternities” and “The Confidence Gap.”
“Sadly, when I got into [professional journalism], I stopped reading longer-form pieces. Pocket is a nudge to remind me how fantastic the industry can be. I feel more informed because of what I choose to read on Pocket; it enlightens me as a journalist.”
For this reason, Lauren’s a fan of our weekly email newsletter, Pocket Hits, which contains five of the best stories from the previous week. “Of the five items in each week’s newsletter, three feel very relevant to me. These are a great complement to what I read for work!”
Kristin Appenbrink, freelance journalist
Formerly senior editor at Real Simple and editorial director for Brit + Co., Kristin Appenbrink is now a freelance journalist who loves “telling stories and solving problems.”
“Any article I’m working on, any project I’m launching, I use Pocket to get background information. By saving online resources to revisit later, I can have everything in one spot, and am able to find links really quickly.”
She also reads up on topics relevant to her professional life, such as community management and social media etiquette.
Kristin loves the convenience of having everything saved in one place. “Pocket was how I stayed organized when I was part of an Essay Club. It was just like a book club, with monthly meetings in which we got together for dinner and to discuss a group of 4-5 articles on a specific theme. One month we did Lean In, women in the workplace, and feminism. In fact, these are topics I can revisit now in Pocket.”
“I don’t read a ton during the day, as I’m trying my best to stay focused. So everything I want to read later goes into Pocket.” This way, Kristin says, “I can stay up to date, but on my own schedule. I enjoy keeping up with newsletters from other journalists, who share their own work and pieces they’ve enjoyed reading—which is all content I wouldn’t normally see.”
Drake Martinet, Head of Platform, VICE News
Drake Martinet first learned about “save-for-later” through his work as a journalist covering technology and apps. He started using Pocket back then, and has remained a fan ever since.
Today, as Head of Platform at VICE News, Drake thinks Pocket is a perfect way to keep up with the channel’s output. “We produce a lot of videos, including some long-form content and some recurring series.” Sometimes, though, a full documentary is “too long for the amount of time I have right now. But I want to make the commitment to give good content my attention.”
“So for me, Pocket is a great way to create what I think of as a pre-programmed TV channel of my favorite VICE News stuff, such as Last Chance High, Russian Roulette, and Thailand on the Brink. I can then pull these clips up later, on my iPad or elsewhere, and get caught up.”
But it’s not just VICE News that keeps Drake coming back to Pocket. “Whenever I want to read more broadly, I like to read material by people who are confronting the same issues I do but from different disciplines. For instance, how is the medical industry dealing with tracking data across locations? Journalists care about that too, but we take a very different approach. I like reading articles about others out there solving problems. And I use Pocket to do that.”
Caroline Abbey, Senior Editor, Random House Children’s Books
Caroline edits novels for young adult readers, so she sees a lot of words fly past her every day. But she also reads widely outside of work, and Pocket is how she stays up to date and informed.
“I tend to read publishing news and blog posts at work, and I get a lot of that content on email. But when I get home, to clear my brain, I read a lot of other things: health news, entertainment and media updates, The Huffington Post’s ‘Working Poor‘ blog, interesting articles from publications like Slate that might not make it to the major headlines…” Since her family owns a small business, she also regularly reads up on entrepreneurship news and is following the minimum wage debate closely.
Beyond the workday, Caroline also brings Pocket with her when she travels. Before she leaves on a trip, whether it’s on vacation or for business, she skims the headlines and downloads everything she wants to read so that it’s available while she’s on the road.
“I thought I’d made a mistake when I bought a Wi-Fi only iPad, but then my brother introduced me to Pocket—and I was hooked immediately!”
