Michaelle Bond on challenges to traditional journalists

My friend and I were talking the other day about majors. He is a computer science major, who is thinking about switching to business. He told me how difficult his current classes are for him. I tried to show him I understood by telling him how hard journalism majors have it. His response was, “That’s not hard. All you do is interview people and write.”

That is not now, nor has it ever been, true, but it is especially false in today’s technological world of instantaneous news, in which media’s audience has come to expect a lot more than written stories alone. And they expect it yesterday.

This heightened sense of urgency in a profession already ruled by tight deadlines is one of the challenges traditional journalists must face when learning how to do multimedia reporting. These journalists are not given much time to learn how to use new techniques and equipment. They are told to go out and report and are mostly left on their own to figure out how to capture a story. After they gather the information, they are often told to present their stories in multiple ways, such as with both a print version and a soundslide or with a written article and an online video.

Figuring out the best way to present a story can be confusing. Before the rise of Web-based journalism, print journalists knew from the beginning what medium they would use to tell their story. The same was true of broadcast journalists. Now, more decisions have to be made regarding the medium used.

I have been told multiple times that there is no longer any such thing as an exclusive “print journalist” or an exclusive “broadcast journalist,” because all types of reporters have been increasingly called upon to do it all. In fact the only distinction that really makes sense is “online journalist,” because that is basically what every journalist is now told to be. They must be able to shoot video, gather audio and write stories and they must be great in each of these areas.

This is the main challenge for traditional journalists in their transition to journalism on the Web. They are expected to be proficient in everything. This means journalists must do even more in order to stand out. This is especially true for young journalists, whom editors assume have superior technological prowess because of the generation in which they grew up. This causes young journalists to feel like they are behind when they do not know how to use various technologies.