A confusing time to be a young journalist
David Johnson June 4th, 2007
I just wrapped up a presentation to a number of journalism students from Hampton University who are participating in the Scripps Howard Foundation Semester in Washington Program. We talked about interactive journalism, which I teach over at American University, and the future of journalism online, trends in mainstream media, and all the scary stuff that is going down in our transitioning industry. I get back to my desk and one of the first things I see is Romenesko pointing to this great story by Steven Barrie-Anthony that wraps up the points of view of five young journalists who are trying to make it work in the business today. Their observations are well worth a read, and your comments are welcomed here.
5 Comments Add your own
1. Anony Mouse | June 4th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Students today have no clue. I attend a lot of journalism student networking mixers. They get news on their cell phones, have Facebook pages (because they are already over MySpace), use IM, etc. Then they come to college and want to do TV or newspaper, which they never watch or read. Oh, and despite the hype over their alleged tech savvy, they don’t know HTML, JavaScript, any of it.
2. Paul | June 4th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
As a student who graduated a couple of years ago, I think that students do have a clue.
I disagree with the last comment, you don’t need to know HTML, Java, XML, CSS, or any of that to make it in new media. That’s why programmers create a CMS.
The problem that I see with friends that I graduated with is that most companies aren’t embracing new media, or letting their employees do so. They are being asked to fill the shoes of people that were laid off due to cut costs, and are being forced to do the work that 2 or 3 used to do. Some of my friends are good journalists, that want to work in with newspapers, tv stations and online outlets… and are willing to work across all the mediums, but the problem isn’t that they are confused, the people that hire them are confused. They get burnt out and move on to jobs that they can make sense of… and unfortuantly most of them leave media. It’s a shame.
3. Rob | June 4th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
I went to a reunion of sorts at my alma mater this weekend for print journalists and found that among all of the people who graduated from the program to become newspaper reporters, none of them - myself included - have anything to do with newspapers.
This goes back as far as alums that graduated in 1990; while Internet is a big factor these days there’s been an exodus of people leaving print journalism going on a long time before the recent unpleasantness being experienced in newsrooms across the country.
Most people I talked to this week shared they weren’t as motivated about being newspaper reporters once they left college and got a taste for what it’s really like out there. Another person summed up everyone’s feelings pretty succinctly: They were newspaper reporters, saw everyone else that weren’t reporters had money, decided they wanted money too, so they found jobs outside of journalism where they got paid decent wages.
4. Tara | June 4th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
I’m a recent graduate, and thought I would be reporting in a small market when I got out of school. But I accepted a job as a new media producer and don’t regret the decision at all. I have really embraced the opportunity and realize that it’ll open up doors for me when I continue my career. I do agree that not enough companies are embracing new media, but I think that’s changing. I work for a pretty progressive company that cares about its stations’ web sites and is getting involved in other new concepts like citizen journalism. But I do think students have a clue, they just don’t realize how many opportunities are out there. They might not all know HTML and CSS, but most of what you learn is on the job anyway, right? I know I’m learning things about web design every day. And there are on-air opportunities on the web too…I do a web segment in our newscast every day and will start webcasting. I hope more students choose to enter this field and hope more companies embrace new media (although eventually I don’t think they’ll have a choice).
5. Hussman | June 5th, 2007 at 6:25 am
Tara, you both scare and motivate me to re-examine my career and future.
As someone who is technically old enough to be your Dad (which would require making a mistake in High school) I thank you.
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