Following up on some reading I did today (Howard Owens and Angela Grant, to name just two), I think there’s an important distinction that needs to be made in what we’re trying to do here at the CICM: helping journalists move online versus making online journalists.
We’re here to help journalists succeed in an online, engaged, community-oriented world. For some journalists, that will mean becoming “online journalists.” That’s why I read weblogs by Mindy McAdams, Howard Owens, Steve Yelvington, Adrian Holovaty, Will Sullivan and the like: because they are online journalists.
But for other journalists, that will mean adjusting their careers and their skill sets to become comfortable with the online environment. They will be journalists online. I think of Doug Fisher as a great pathfinder of this mindset, as is Leonard Witt.
I have to go back to McAdams’ skill set for online journalism (read it here).
I don’t think every journalist who works for a news organization needs to know Flash, database management, HTML/CSS, weblogs, podcasts, article comments, photo editing, video production, crowdsourcing, and mapping software. I don’t even think every prospective journalist graduating from college needs to know all these things.
But every journalist graduating from college today needs to have a working knowledge of the existence of these things and how they work. Every journalist graduating from school today needs to understand the importance of hyperlinks in the online environment, and the ways that online stories can be enhanced using audio, video, Flash, PDF source documents, or user-generated materials. They need to know the importance of the community of users, and how crucial engagement is in the survival of their news operations.
Some of these skills are going to be more essential to graduating journalists - print, especially. I really think print journalists should know how to record and edit audio and compose and take decent photographs (even short videos) at a bare minimum, and know how to insert hyperlinks into a news story. But knowing those skills won’t make you a journalist, any more than knowing how to boil an egg will make you a chef.
Even in colleges and high schools, we see students who resist this mindset - the ability to be comfortable online. And that’s what we’re hoping to help change.
on Nov 14th, 2006 at 3:20 pm
Good post.
From my perspective today, both as a result of larger issues I’m dealing with, things I’m reflecting on, and also related to the recent debate over quality vs. quantity, I think the most critical issue for journalists to get their heads around are more cultural than technical. It isn’t about the tools. It’s about the attitudes. Either you believe the journalist is in control, or you believe the people are in control (trying to avoid the word audience, there).
My whole approach is based on the premise that the people are in control and there is absolutely nothing we as journalist can do about it (as much as we might wish it were not true). Either we can go with flow and have a chance to survive, or we can resist and die.