Young Journos Do Have a Future -- If They Are Nimble

Young Journos Do Have a Future -- If They Are Nimble

Managing one's own expectations about career development is tricky right now, but the news industry's challenges are never so acute as when you have to explain them to hopeful, idealistic student journalists. After E&P introduced our new feature on the "new New Journalism" last week, and solicited feedback, I received several notes from people who were concerned about how to train and inspire newbies. As one radio news director in Alabama put it: "We're trying to balance efforts to serve our listening audience and serve a different web audience while trying to be innovative in our coverage and presentation. Students have asked me about where journalism is going, and I have to tell them that I don't have a solid idea about that right now."This has been on my mind as well after a recent talk I gave at my alma mater to the UCLA Daily Bruin newspaper staff. Notebooks in hand, the students peppered me with questions about whether graduate school was worth it and if the news was destined to be a sea of dumbed-down sound bites. In such situations, it's important to take the opportunity to lead by example and show an attitude of poise and business savvy. It's counterproductive and histrionic to kowtow to the doomsayers who forecast the industry's assured demise, and most people expressing such bleak opinions are lacking in business sensibilities. The same arguments were made about radio, and even movies, after television arrived; innovation and change simply means that a market is changing and a product must adapt. Instead of feeding into fears, consider teaching someone a lifelong career skill that applies to all industries: versatility. It's baffling how many journalists, who comb through countless angles to produce a thoughtful story, are actually one-trick ponies. Of course, there's a reason why Scarlett Johanssen's CD of Tom Waits covers is not as popular as her box office blockbusters, and a committed journalist doesn't want to become a jack-of-all-trades/master-of-
none. But as a former Huffington Post colleague who now works at a major daily pointed out to me after I shared some of the email responses to last week's introduction: "When newspapers are looking to make layoffs they're looking for the people who a) make the most money and do the least, but b) don't have a well-rounded skill set." This is exactly what I told the Bruin staff: There will always be a great career for people who can gather accurate facts and present them fairly, you just have to make a concerted effort to train yourself to be a storyteller in any medium. Practice being comfortable on camera, listen to NPR or Blog Talk Radio, and know web strategy and programming basics. More importantly, though, is that versatility cannot end with editorial skills. I was aghast when I asked the Bruin staffers how many of them knew what a CPM was and my question was met with resounding silence. Same for an Alexa ranking or Google Analytics. Viewing the news through a myopic editorial lens is prohibitive to success. Even one of my very editorially-minded former Chicago Tribune colleagues suggested in an email exchange recently:"You know what young people wanting to go into journalism should really do? Spend their energy figuring out how to make money (i.e. pay for the creation of) for the content news organizations are providing now … We all know a model where content is expensive to create but free to consume is a broken model; and if you don't pay for experienced journalists and for the costs of newsgathering (security in Iraq, for example, or travel costs to follow the presidential campaign), the content that is so widely consumed now … will ultimately suffer. Seriously, the person who figures out the revenue model for 21st century journalism (on all its platforms) will be a hero in the industry along the lines of Gutenberg with his printing press."Talking about advertising revenue and branding strategies may seem inappropriate to some, but there's nothing unethical about being informed or acting strategically to preserve the product of quality news reporting. Rather it is a concerned journalist's responsibility to work outside the silos to facilitate understanding and generate potential solutions that protect the principles of credibility and substance. Journalists are the ones with that unique editorial perspective, which is why we have to push hardest.
I agreed with a 26-year-old beat reporter from Missouri who wrote to me: "In all areas of the newspaper (editorial, circulation, marketing, advertising), the people who have lacked innovation to change the industry to the changing needs of readers are the same people who are largely still in charge."So we should probably encourage the kiddos to boldly pursue their dreams while planning to be critical, vocal, participants in the innovation process once they're on the job. Then we should heed our own sage advice.