Online News: A Decade of Change or Stasis?

The difference now is that need for this type of full-story telling is accelerating and reaching rapidly into smaller markets, brought on as shakeups in the communications industry continue to make headlines. One of the more recent announcements was that the The Grey Lady herself is forced to make sweeping cuts in the newsroom, laying off reporters for the first time in the paper’s 150+ year history.

All Things to All People"
Even in the smaller markets, more than 70 per cent of the reporters I interviewed said they're now pulling double duty as print and video journalists.

With this shift, then, how are students being trained to approach the brave new world of journalism? And will it affect TV news broadcasts in the same way that it is affecting print journalism?

"Recent research seems to indicate that people still are not abandoning sitting down to the TV for entertainment, and show very little inclination to do so," said Jim Bailey, an anchor and the managing editor at WJHL-TV. "In fact, average daily consumption of TV per viewer is increasing. For the broadcast journalist, however, the waters are a little murkier. People are getting their news from internet and 24-hour news channels. To some degree local news is insulated, but only to the degree you can offer local viewers something they want to see. Advertisers will follow the eyeballs, so the sustenance of traditional media will depend on whether viewers find a reason to stay."

WJHL is part of a mid-tier media conglomerate that also owns one of the newspapers in his market, so Bailey's interview for the college project I've been working on provides an interesting take.

"With all that being said, though, the biggest threat for journalists—be it print or broadcast—is relevance," said Bailey. "What is now in doubt is whether consumers see a need or value in having journalists ‘filter’ the news. That public trust has already suffered great damage for a variety of reasons, which may predispose a large segment of the public to investigate other methods of acquiring information. Journalists of all kinds are being asked to be all things to all people—writing is not just the exclusive domain of print journalists, nor is video the exclusive domain of broadcast journalists. The web takes both of those, mixes them together, and adds two new elements: blazingly fast response times (from a "breaking news" standpoint) and interactivity/feedback in a way that most traditional news media is not used to facing.

"In any or all of these scenarios one thing is certain: today's graduates must be more broadly prepared than ever before, and it is up to schools to adapt to preparing them," continued Bailey. "An applicant today should be well-versed in writing and packaging for broadcast, AND for print, because they are almost certainly going to have to do both. I think this all puts tremendous pressure on educators. You need to be ahead of the curve in training students for a future that most of us in the profession aren't yet certain about, including new technologies that are obsolete almost as soon as they are released."

In the race to get the news out, Bailey and others reported that they use a "first available" approach to media distribution. In essence, as newspapers ask the reporters to carry video cameras, and as they form their own online video teams, the decision on where to place news stories first is based mainly on which medium will be distributed first. Often that means the web, but it could also be the evening news or—if it happens overnight—the morning newspaper, supplemented by additional print and streaming media content on the website.

"The core of every degree for a student interested in entering the diversifying information media world needs to be focused on the core fundamentals of journalism, ethics, writing, gathering and vetting facts, and ethical presentation," said Bailey. "That in the final analysis may be the only thing that separates the professional from the amateur journalist in the years ahead."