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Journalists need retraining, sort of!

Posted on | December 9, 2009 | No Comments

Today more than ever journalists need to be retrained on how to connect their stories to their multiple audiences.

The problem faced by journalists today is very simply that their occupation is transforming and they do not know how to transform along with it.

When we academics talk about the changes taking place to journalism we love to use the word converging!

I hate to break it to those academics but the convergence had happened and we are already on to the next thing!

One academic I spoke to today suggested that there are different understandings of convergence, no there is not!

Convergence as the 1st hit on a Google search suggests is a simple and I might add dated concept!

Search Results

Technological convergence – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to Media convergence?: Convergence of media occurs when multiple products come together to form one product with the advantages of all of them, …
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_convergence – Cached – Similar

In 1990 YES convergence was easily a newspapers website with audio, video and links on it.

Today we have a whole new journalism emerging because technology has advanced in a way that was never expected, control and creation have been very broadly moved from the hands of the few, the controller’s, to the hands of the many, the consumers.
And then along came WEB2.0, the whole convergent model was then thrown into the wind!

But there are plenty of academics and media organizations who are holding onto the old school convergent model much like a security blanket.

I would suggest the reason we see journalists and journalism organizations holding onto the old ideas of convergence, remember I am suggesting we already converged and have moved on, is because they are unsure what this means for them.

We hear a lot about citizen journalism, which is not convergence but a means of communicating information among the mass audience.

We read a lot about WEB2.0 and which is also not journalism but a delivery system for conversations and stories.

So where are we if convergence has come and gone?

We are in a new place,  a place that sees the simultaneous existence of old media (with their converged offering), citizen journalism with everyone telling a story and what I am calling the iJournalist.

So where are we today then?

We are in a place where the writing, research, editing and presentation skills of journalism are as important as ever.

We are in a place where the variety of sources available to the journalist have changed and now include the immediate interaction of the public on the ground, the citizen journalist.

We are in a place where speed is important and deadlines have gone from being in hours to literally in minutes.

We are in a place where editing and production takes place during an event and the story is posted before, during and after that event.
We are in a place where there are multiple and simultaneous delivery systems that may but often do not reside in a single place although they can and often are collected.
We are in a place where journalism takes place using a smart form and is consumed using that same phone.

So what does this mean for journalism and where does the retraining fit in?
Journalists need to be trained for speed.
Journalists need to be trained on the new art of sourceology.
Journalists and editors need to be able to communicate fast and efficiently and both might today find themselves in the field.
Journalists need to understand the different delivery systems for their stories.
Journalists need to understand the new configuration needed for stories and the fact that this will influence the audience.
Journalists need to understand that their audience is no longer static but dynamic.
Journalists need to understand that their work is being consumed,in many cases from a phone!

I believe what we are about to witness is the resurgence of journalism as a career!
And for those who are not part of the 4th screen generation, wed to paper, it is time for a bit of retraining!
The new face of journalism on my office wall!



Category: Design, Education, Innovation
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