The New Journalism: Beyond New Media

In 2003, it seemed that the newspaper industry was just fine. Soaking up news about the world and their local neighborhoods, people across the country read daily and Sunday papers. Then, later that year, the Audit Bureau of Circulation, which tracks circulation of newspapers, noticed a drastic decrease in readership. 

The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, which conducts studies relating to the print industry, confirmed surprising decreases in their State of the Media 2009 Report. From September 2003 to September 2008 there was a 4.6 percent drop in daily newspaper circulation and a 4.8 percent decline in Sunday paper circulation. 

The declines are partly a result of the failing economy, but more so due to technological advances that allow readers to get their news from the Internet. While this doesn’t seem like much of a problem for readers, the people who aspire to and currently contribute to the shrinking industry are suffering along with the publications – journalism students especially. 

As a result, journalism schools around the country are refocusing their curriculum and doing more than ever before to prepare their students for the new print age. 

Robert Calo, a senior lecturer and Dean at Berkley Graduate School of Journalism says, 

“We have to think about what students need to know to survive, but we really can’t predict what that business looks like.” 

Calo admits that it is a terrifying time for students, because they are witnessing the collapse of an industry that they are working to thrive in. 

Through news and entertainment websites, multimedia forms have gradually become central mediums for disseminating information. This has forced working and aspiring reporters to reshape their journalistic mindsets and become all-around backpack, tech savvy journalists. Though the extent journalism schools and their students should go to in order to expand on these skills has yet to be bounded.  

“If you were coming to Berkley we wouldn’t let you leave a print journalism major,” says Calo. He says journalism students today have to know how to provide information through several different mediums and know how to do so sometimes simultaneously.  

He tells them, “That’s great you know how to write and think, but you’ve got to learn how to do these other things.” 

Journalism students today are expected to know how to shoot and edit videos, produce picture and audio stories and put together multimedia packages. Aside from picking up new skills related to new media, they need to know how to go beyond posting video and editing an audio track. Journalism schools are taking the initiative to show them how. 

 “We keep expecting [the print industry] to get tougher, but so far it hasn’t,” said Brian Richardson who heads the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications at Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Virginia.

 “We’re offering specialized courses in science/legal and business reporting,” said Richardson speaking of WLU’s efforts to give their students an edge. 

Washington and Lee University converged their journalism program years ago, meshing together all journalism concentrations into one that would produce an industry-ready graduate that knows how to write for print, online, broadcast in addition to shooting and editing video.