Classes are done, the last papers have been graded and summer school has already begun (at least at the community college where I teach journalism). It's a moment to ponder the state of the news business and journalism education. Uneasy, I'd call it.
True, the massive newsroom layoffs of a few years ago seem to have abated, and some papers and news websites are hiring and even expanding. And yes there's the thrill, especially for young people just starting their careers, of being present for what are still the early days of the digital media revolution.
But with print circulation continuing its long decline, real worries about how to support online news remain. Online advertising revenue is rising and last year surpassed its print counterpart, but as Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, points out in the Washington Post, the lion's share of digital ad revenue is going to Google.
With no proven business model for online news yet established, some papers, most notably The New York Times, are implementing website paywalls. Critics for years have said they wouldn't work (even though they hadn't really been tried.) Now we'll finally see. Interestingly, the sentiment about paywalls seems to have changed, with many media-geeks now saying that, logistics aside, they hope paywalls work. I for one would rather pay for the Times than see it disappear.
All this uncertainty has bled over to journalism schools, which for years have struggled to keep current by creating classes in what's usually called multimedia journalism. More recently there's been a backlash from critics who say tech training is shoving aside courses in the fundamentals. These fears reached a head when the University of Colorado decided to close its j-school in favor of an annoyingly jargony-sounding "information and communication technology" program.
None of which seems to have much bearing on the decision-making of the nation's college students, thousands of whom still enroll in j-schools each year. Nor does it seem to dampen the enthusiasm of my students, who, having grown up in a digital age, still get a charge out of publishing something as old-school as a college newspaper.
The journalism job market seems to be a mixed bag, and there's no telling what it'll be like when my current students graduate in a few years. But recently I got an e-mail from a former student who had just landed a job covering the school board and local government for a small-town paper in Pennsylvania. A journeyman reporter starting his career covering a meat-and-potatoes beat for a hometown newspaper - it all sounded very old-fashioned, very "legacy media" and, in the current environment, a mite risky. But try telling that to a kid who's just landed his first real job in a profession he's come to love. The excitement in his message was palpable.
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Comments
Tony,
I’ll never forget the first article I wrote that landed on the front page of the weekly Hardwick (Vermont) Gazette. Those clips from an unpaid job my grandfather, a friend of the publisher, got for me, led to a gig with the daily Caledonian-Record, then the Burlington (VT) Free Press and then AP, where you and I crossed paths.
I’ll never regret going into journalism, although if I had to do it over, I would have gotten a law degree somewhere along the line, not to be a lawyer, but a better reporter.
JOURNALISM WILL BE MY SECOND CARER AND I SHAL NOT REGRET MY DECISION
Loved your comment about how your college students still get quite a charge out of publishing their campus newspaper. I’m faculty adviser to our student paper at Daemen College (Amherst, N.Y., near Buffalo) and I concur that my “kids” — and I — absolutely love getting our edition out each week. And, hopefully, so do our appreciative readers.
Journalism is one of those areas that, in my view, should be studied along with some other area of specialization; e.g., music, politics, environmental studies, health sciences, etc.
“Generalists” are, I fear, going to get lost in the shuffle and the transformation of the profession from ink-on-paper to the digital world. But those who know in-depth things like economics, politics, history — whatever — will be far more marketable.
The problem, too, is that virtually “anyone” can “be a journalist.” They may not be very good, but they can be a journalist if they report and write. Not “everyone” can be a biologist…not everyone can be a pharmacist…not everyone can be a meterologist. But everyone can be a journalist. Especially with the advent of blogging.
Point? Don’t be like “everyone.” Be special. Be specialized. Be better.