Moderator Don Seiffert speaks with Paula Bouknight, Dan Mauzy, and Ben Dobson about the kinds of skills that are most attractive to employers and best practices for applying for a journalism job. Recorded Feb. 23, 2021.

Watch video and get tips on how to get a journalism job

Don Seiffert has been a full-time journalist in the Boston area for 24 years, starting at small community weeklies, including six years as editor of the Newton TAB and four years as suburban editor of the Brockton Enterprise. He joined the Boston Business Journal in 2012, where he covered biotech and the life science industry. Since 2016, he has been the paper’s managing editor, while covering local media. He is currently the treasurer of SPJNE.

Paula Bouknight is assistant managing editor for hiring and development at the Boston Globe. She oversees recruitment and the Globe’s college summer internship and coop programs. She works with department and section heads to identify and attract top candidates and improve diversity in the newsroom. Bouknight began her career at The Globe in 1986 in the Sports department as a copy editor. Since then, she has worked on the news copy desk, overseen production of New Hampshire Weekly and City Weekly, and served as night editor. When The Globe embarked on the Bulldog experiment in 2000, she was placed in charge of production, and when the experiment ended, she was named one of two editors for the expanded Globe North section.

Dan Mauzy is executive editor for News at WBUR, where he’s worked for more than a decade, serving as managing editor and senior producer of Morning Edition. As Executive Editor he oversees a local newsroom of about 80 journalists. He got his start in journalism as a newspaper reporter covering the state legislature in New Mexico and went on to work for StoryCorps in Brooklyn, NY. Dan grew up in Stoneham and now lives in Somerville. Ben Dobson is the VP of News for three of NBCUniversal’s TV channels in Boston. He has oversight of NBC10 Boston, Telemundo Boston and NECN. In this role, he is responsible for the overall editorial direction and news gathering strategy of each station. A Massachusetts native, Dobson started his career as a TV reporter at a local cable channel CharterTV 3 in Worcester before working on the assignment desks at WFXT and WHDH. He made his transition into management at WVIT in Connecticut in 2011 as a Managing Editor, and has been with NBCUniversal since then. Dobson is graduate of Ithaca College and holds a BA in Journalism.