In my junior year of studying journalism at Baruch College, my copy editing professor, Benjamin Hudson, tried to assure me and the rest of my classmates by saying, “I think if you are all determined enough, there are ways to crack the nut.”
Journalism is a profession like a living organism, and it will do whatever it takes to survive. This includes adapting to a dramatically shifted environment where money from advertising and hired staff members are being lost at rapid rates. Although the situation looks bleak right now. I believe that journalism will not only survive, but wind up stronger then ever in the years to come. The quality of the printed word will be richer and deeper as students learn skills in a more hands-on environment. As bloggers and amateur journalists interact and cooperate with professional journalists, there will be more coverage in local news, and the public will find a new loyalty in the field. Lastly, journalism will continue its transition to find new formats and mediums that appeal to news consumers, and eventually, we will stop the hemorrhaging of money by creating a product worth purchasing.
The current education system geared towards journalism is making bold, positive progress not only to make future journalists accountable members of the media, but to facilitate change to a more online-based media. Students are still taught by professors who have worked within the press, and are usually required to complete a four-month-or-so internship with a media publication. Now, however, there is even more being done to train students. According to the article, “The Reconstruction of American Journalism,” by Downie and Schudson, more and more students’ work have begun to contribute both in print and online to local newspapers. The article cited Florida as an example, but I myself have contributed to a local newspaper in Jersey City under the guidance of my professor.
The article also cites examples of centers for investigative journalism being forged out of universities. I can see this becoming an increasing trend in the future because of the growing demand for local news coverage. In Jan Schaffer’s piece, “Follow the Breadcrumbs,” the author refers to the hole in local news coverage created by massive staff cuts. Students will become an imperative tool to fill this hole, and while many news sources cannot afford to pay freelance students at this time, I believe that this, too, will end once the consumer’s appetite for local news is satisfied.
I believe that education and journalism will make headway by teaching students the tools of the internet to give consumers a fuller, more interactive multimedia experience. I have already witnessed the addition of multimedia classes at Baruch, and I imagine that soon, many more net-based classes will become part of the curriculum. At this current time, students in several journalism courses contribute to a school-based blog site. This is a good start, but I envision that soon, professors will encourage their students to start up their own blogs using web-design and multimedia classes, each with a different angle on local-news coverage.
Once students play a more active and independent role in amateur local news coverage, the pro-am network will be so readily available that local news can be covered faster and more accurately. This cooperation is mentioned in the article, “The Future is Mutualized” by Alan Rusbridger. This is not to say that fact-checking on both the professional and amateur level won’t be a priority, but because the future of amateur journalists will be students who are taught to be accountable, there will be less room for error in reporting. Problems like those discussed in Russel Working’s “A Failure of Skepticism,” or in the story, “Myth-Making in New Orleans” by Brian Thevenot, or Raquel Christie’s “Double Whammy” (the latter two stories from the American Journalism Review) will dissipate. A catalog of journalistic disasters ought to be created because students who learn about past mistakes are far-less-likely to repeat them.
A strengthened, more accountable news network will bring back local news, but the model that news is delivered in will also have to change. Schaffer mentions that the “something-for-everyone, grocery-store model of newspapers no longer meets consumers’ needs.” The fact is, some people prefer a wide-range of national, international, and local news where some people just want niche news for things like celebrity gossip, sports, or politics. Journalism’s future on the internet will be dedicated to niche-media. The trend of niche-media on the web is just beginning with sites like TexasTribune.org, which is devoted strictly to Texas politics. Printed newspapers in the future will exist for the public that prefers a broad-range of news and likes a little bit of news from every aisle journalism has to offer. Newspapers will be more valuable in the future when professional journalists have a wider network to work with, and specialized web media will be valuable for the people it serves. There will truly be something for everyone on both the web and in print, and because both can exist and even cooperate, news will never become too fragmented or too general.
News consumers will experience an endless range of stories to be covered both in print and on the web, all of which will be linked with the most influential trend in media since the start of the 21st century: social networking. According to Alexa.com, a website that ranks the top-visited websites from month to month, Facebook and Twitter placed numbers 2 and 14, respectively, on the list for December. Neither of the two websites will ever be a substitute for real, concrete reporting: the allotted 140 characters on Twitter is hardly enough to produce an informative news story. However, both websites have allowed for rapid sharing of information between journalists and citizens alike. I believe that in the future, someone will create a website that allows people to gather various news articles from across the web, whether it be niche-media or otherwise, that will not just be limited to print but also viral content like Youtube (rated number 4). Users will also be able to add in reporting from their own blogs. This website will allow for a D.I.Y. newspaper made by news consumers from their computers at home. Finally, each individual e-paper will be able to be submitted from person to person via social networking.
Rather than asking for philanthropic donations like Downie and Schudson, journalists must be willing to change a model that has existed since the 19th century. I believe that no firewall can ever truly separate the opinions of the donor from the words written by a recipient, and in an era where funding from advertising is scarce, we may have the most credible and bias-free news yet. Journalism will survive, but it will come with a major shift in the way it is thought about. It will first start in the classroom and eventually lead to a more cooperative, tech-savy network of journalists who cover a broad range of topics. The gap in local reporting will cease to be, leaving a more satisfied public of news consumers. And finally, social networking will prove to be the biggest tool for journalism since the invention of the internet.
I agree. I said something similar to the whole student-involvement aspect. I think if we start young, we have a better shot of conditioning ourselves to tell the truth and share it more accurately.