New Tools?

Journalism education is so far out of wack that students are teaching themselves to blog, take pictures and do podcast. While the industry screams for more multi-media gatekeepers, the institutions are leaving students to add on the now so important components of becoming a 21st hack.
No longer is it acceptable to write a great new story or a feature now you have to know how to blog, do podcast and even take decent pictures...I know how outragious! As the Telegraph hub becomes the blue print for the future of the newsroom, its clear journalism institutions need to get to grips with the digital age before its too late. Mindy McAdams' blog Getting (and keeping) a job in journalism says the future is online:

"I am far from being the ONLY person who has already been saying this for years. Far too many people, however, are still plugging cotton into their ears and shutting their eyes.If a student in a j-school today thinks it is okay NOT to learn how to make Web pages, NOT to shoot video, NOT to gather audio, NOT to read and write blogs -- then that student is not getting a message that is very, very necessary. Now, let me hasten to say that some of those students are the very ones who are deliberately plugging their own ears and closing their eyes to reality. They are attached to a dream of becoming someone from the past -- maybe photojournalist Eddie Adams, maybe gonzo writer Hunter S. Thompson -- a journalist who only took pictures or who only wrote (okay, Thompson did a lot besides just writing, and some of it pretty unsavory too, but as for the journalism, he was a writer)."

Don't get me wrong the art of writing is a vital skill to have if you want to get a byline on any publication, but lecturers need to acknowledge and embrace the digital age. It is time that more lesson plans included how to's on blogging, podcasting and taking digital images. These may be considered as just add ons to traditionalist who rather stay well away from the growing world wide web, but they are vital in today's media. Although you may use the internet everyday to check emails and talk on MSN, it represents more than just a tool to communicate. It is a great place to get juicy stories, but if you don't even know what Web 2.0 is and are unaware of the dangers of google are, you've got a problem. Judging by the growth of the presence of newsagencies and publications online, it would be suicidal to ignore the implication of the internet on the way we do our job.

Jen and Misty talk multimedia