What is up with these people?
November 1, 2007 in career talk
Paul Conley (the one-man quote machine (TM)) offered this from the CMA/ACP convention: #
Among the disconcerting things I ran into at the convention:WTF? I mean, seriously, WTF? Who is telling students *not* to mention the Web site? Whoever those folks are should have their tenure revoked. I’m serious. Nothing I have heard from recruiters and industry experts suggests that. And what’s more, if they did, I’d suggest they be fired as well. #
1. A senior who said his journalism teachers told him he should never tell a prospective employer he knows how to shoot photos, because it means he’ll never get a chance to write.
2. A student who said her adviser told her she should never, ever mention her college newspaper’s Web site on her resume, because no magazine will hire someone who has written for the Web.
3. A student who said she was told by teachers that newspaper design was a booming field.
4. A slew of students who seemed unaware of the financial and circulation challenges the print media industry is facing.
5. At least a dozen students who said they want to be “writers” and that have zero interest in working on any Web-based product. #
The only antidote to Paul’s reportage is the numerous contacts I made with folks who really do “get it.” That’s the future of journalism – lots of web editors, multimedia storytellers, and people who are committed to practicing journalism in the best manner on the best platform possible. Those people have a future in journalism. The others? They should go back to their professors and ask “WTF are you thinking?” #
This is unacceptable. What kind of "educators" does journalism have today? They are on the front line of what is wrong with journalism. We need more McAdams and less people living in the 18th century.
I graduated in 2006, and I was never told by my professors about the terrible state of journalism, especially print journalism. I will say that they did encourage people to have Web skills at least. But my degree is in print journalism, and I got my Web journalism job because of what I learned on my own.
I really think journalism professors need to be preparing students for the realities on the ground. Newspapers like mine are looking for people with varied skill sets. Can you write, edit, shoot photos, capture and edit audio, etc? That's the future of journalism.
No one is going to hold it against you for having more skills than the minimum. What a crazy time it is for journalism education. A crazy, scary time.
Yes I agree WTF. I want to know what crack those guys were smoking and know to stay away from it.
J profs have had their head in the sand since as far back as 1990, when I graduated. I had zero prospects for a print job because the Dallas Time Herald, The San Antonio Light and the Houston Post all closed shop within a few years of each other. In Texas, and I suppose across the country, there was a glut of experienced journalists out of work. This rolled down to the daily and weekly small town papers. So no entry level jobs for nearly a decade. Most of the j majors I graduated with either went into PR, TV or teaching. I chose TV and then teaching. And in Texas a depressingly large number of journalism schools are being crushed under the umbrella of Mass Communications departments being run by Drama or English profs. All that "web" stuff is being taught in the Design departments – the same place they sent the photographers. And that is run by the Art profs. Journalism is being sent to the slaughterhouse. Don't expect that to change any time soon.
Agreed, Brian. I, too, have posted about this. We're hiring in Greensboro, so if you have some of those who "get it" send them our way.
I left j-school in '92 without a scrap of teaching in television, yet within two years I was producing and anchoring my own show in a major city. I think that if you can write and are willing to learn something new while applying the skills you learn in print, you can do well in any medium, including the web.
That doesn't excuse profs from being out of date, though. I think a lot of it has to do with the old ivory tower.