I began weblogging in late 1999 back when dinosaurs roamed the interweb and low Metafilter user numbers were just up for the taking. I was made aware of blogs by this guy, who used to have a weblog at that address. I began reading them daily. For a while they became all I read. I started posting pithy crap to a pitas page when I was just 21 years old, and as naive and gullible as you can imagine.
I earned a print journalism degree in 2002 from a state school in middle Tennessee, where I was born. I waited tables the entire time I went to school and took classes part time. It took me seven years to graduate and looking back now I wouldn’t change anything. I needed that time to grow up. I spent my entire childhood trying to be mature, so I spent my early 20s acting like a kid. Worked out well for me.
I freelanced for a while after college while continuing to wait tables and bartend. I wrote several cover stories and film reviews for the local alt weekly in Nashville before landing a gig blogging professionally for the ABC affiliate there. I was the first blogger ever hired by a t.v. news organization, and for two years ran the weblog Nashville is Talking (now a sad shell of its former self). As writer and editor of Nashville is Talking I managed to make some friends, piss off a bunch of people and make a name for myself as a pioneer in the new media realm. [I also found myself on-air.] I quit the Nashville is Talking editor position amidst a nasty controversy and major managerial changes. I thought I wanted to blog only as a hobby after that painful experience; go back to only writing my blog for me. However, after several months making a living as a copywriter I got a call from a t.v. station in the Bay Area that was looking for a blogger to run a community portal in San Francisco. I’d always wanted to move from Nashville to a big city to be a writer. Suddenly I found myself presented with that option.
So, I moved to Berkeley. I now work as a blogger for CBS5 from their newsroom in SF’s Financial District. The blog I write and edit for them will go live after the first of the year.
I love the Bay Area. I am very lucky to get to live in a place this amazing and beautiful among people who are much the same. I’m just starting to uncover all that is wonderful about this place, this foreign land, and all that it holds for me. My trip is only beginning.
Elsewhere:
Tumblr
Twitter
Flickr
YouTube
Technorati
Vimeo
Press:
Businesses Go Blogging Nashville City Paper
Seven big ideas (and one pet peeve) from BlogNashville Online Journalism Review
Center for Citizen Media: Conversation with Brittney Gilbert of Nashvilleistalking.com
Bloggers get creative, but they don’t get rich Columbia News Service
The Blogger System Business TN
Resignation at WKRN Nashville Post
WKRN’s Web Woes Broadcasting & Cable
Blogging Into The Mainstream Forbes
Brittney’s Second Act Broadcasting & Cable
Brittney Gilbert Takes Blogger Job at KPIX Lost Remote
News viewers chat back San Jose Mercury
NewsMakers TV Week
KPIX-Channel 5 Hires Blogger, Weather Anchor Inside Bay Area
My Cover Stories:
For Those About to Rock Nashville Scene
Blogged to Death Nashville Scene