The New Face of Journalism I Imagine.

Posted on | November 11, 2009 | No Comments

I believe journalism is in a crisis situation, the crisis of being irrelevant.

I believe that journalism is on the brink of becoming irrelevant as a field of study NOT because students are abandoning the field of study, but because the professors and practitioners of the trade are unable to grasp, see, live, adapt to the rapidly changing environment the news lives in.

YES THINGS ARE CHANGING.

YES WE ALL NEED TO RE-CONCEPTUALIZE.

TOO BAD THE OLD GUARD IS PUTTING UP A WALL OF PENS AND PAPER, I HOPE THE SHOW IS A S GOOD AS LES MISSERABLES!

So what do we need to do?

The solution is in your hand and staring you in the face!

We need to get our students totally involved in the journalism/storytelling process as it exists at the grassroots level.

I would call this pocket journalism.

Almost all  students are in the possession of a Nokia/Blackberry/IPhone or variation of the ever common smartphone and they could use these as reporting and publishing tools if they knew how.

So lets show them!

Why can’t the old guard professors show the new guard the way forward combing the old and new?

We can have a print, audio, video presence tomorrow on every campus around the world, ok lets start here in the UAE that is manageable, REALLY tomorrow, if we embrace the idea that technology enables grassroots journalism, not to be confused with instant or citizen journalism.
We have a new journalism and it is hand held and App driven.

The sites below are the new tools of journalism.

www.audioboo.fm
www.twitter.com
www.12seconds.tv
www.youtube.com
www.facebook.com

By using a smartphone and only the smartphone we can create an instant, not to be confused with point and shoot journalism, media presence on the global stage! Students can talk to students, the displaced can talk to the displaced and leaders can talk to all and explain what is happening, why and how things will be resolved.
Journalism goes from being near history to immediate history.
What do we need? Build the living evolving course that applies our writing, research, design and thinking skills to the modern art of journalism.

Who is teaching the course?

Where is the course being taught?

Who are the students?

Tick tock, time to get activated the iPhone has changed everything when it comes to education and specifically journalism education time to get in front of the wave!

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