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« Smoke Signals | Main | Exposing the Insiders' Game » January 9, 2007The Future of Journalism Is Smaller
Former newspaper reporter Trent Seibert, who left The Tennessean last year and is now a multi-media journalist with WKRN Channel 2 in Nashville, commented on his blog the other day about a column by Editor & Publisher columnist Steven Outing, who in a column of advice to small newspapers encouraged them to avoid hiring "print-focused" journalists. Outing wrote: My advice is to ONLY hire people whose skills cross media platforms. Look for people who not only understand and are enthusiastic about online media, but who also can serve the print edition well. If a job candidate says she has always aspired to be a newspaper reporter, and doesn't come in the door with some multimedia skills and experience such as video and audio production, frankly I'd keep looking.Seibert's two cents: I can say in my own experience of learning shooting and editing video here at WKRN, that I can't imagine going back to a newspaper without using these newfound skills as part of my reporting.I agree with Seibert - Outing's advice isn't just good for small newspapers, but bigger city papers too. What does that have to do with the Nokia gadget in the picture? Everything. Imagine a newspaper with reporters carrying such devices, able to shoot, edit and file stories from the field, posting them directly to the newspaper website, reporting news in virtually real-time. Imagine, further, a world where such highly-capable reporting tools are in the hands of many of the readers of a multi-media "newspaper" that encourages its readers to shoot their own news stories and send them in. Exciting ... but only for those newspapers with the courage to change. Posted in Journalism & Media
Comments
Bill, truly amazing! Technology, as you have discussed, and its immense possibilities for efficiency and spreading democracy to the masses... well, it just "juices" me. Nice post. Posted by: phil at January 9, 2007 1:29 PMVery good point. Now they just need to make that little baby easy for my big fingers to manipulate or have an external keyboard and monitor and we're all set. The next dream? Individualized internet for us all wherever we are... Posted by: Nicole Sauce at January 9, 2007 8:45 PMDo they not teach these skills at Edison Carter magnet school underwritten by Network 23? Now if reporters can just put their latent organizational skills into gear by converting current blog commenting into wiki-based news portals where readers-contributors can ad their own up-to-date and in-depth content -- in a structured and easily searchable manner. National and global adoption of standard tagging categories would be helpful with the whole semantic / web 2.0 angle. Posted by: Ed Dodds at January 10, 2007 6:17 AMThat is what's so great about personal blogs, they can be updated on the fly without having to worry about the bureaucracy and politics of the publishers and editors. Every day more and more people are getting their news from non-traditional sources and it will only continue as the traditional media continues down the path of same ole, same ole. Posted by: bro robin at January 10, 2007 10:19 AMPost a comment
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