Skills training - what should we be doing for the digital journalist

Skills training is not enough for the digital journalist

Nikki Usher on OJR

wrote the following on 2009-02-18. Here's a snippet and below my response

...The skills, though, aren't the answer. As one news executive said, "We need to take staff to Web 2.0 and beyond – to make learning more nimble and flexible." This executive, after putting staff through training pilots, realized that multimedia literacy and a basic understanding of what it meant to work in a Web environment was what people needed – before they could go about learning the hardware.

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My Response

The premise was clear, if journalism was about providing information/ facts, why wouldn't we use everything we could conceive of to do that job.

An expedition to Gallipoli to war graves in the Dardanelles from WWI resulted in a blog, article, radio piece for the BBC World Service, Video and promo. This was 1999, a few years before web 2.0.

I had been a Videojournalist by then for five years and a network producer/ reporter for 11 having worked for the BBC, ABC News, WTN et al.

Nice post Nikki. Like you today I'm an academic and other things.

I'd argue, you might agree, this is a much deeper disco which requires more sustained attention in these transitional times.

Firstly, the new art of journalism, multimedia and that's how I view it, "an art" requires different creative modes of thinking - design, narratology, image aesthetics etc.

(Network) journalists at best can find the appropriation of terms such as "network" frustrating. That's not Becket's fault. And when did a conversation become a conversation . How does that work? I'm not claiming ignorance. This shift to this new weburnalism is attitudinal.

Can we teach creativity? No, correction, can we learn to be creative? For even teaching and learning aren't the same.

My point there's semiotic and linguistic differences that tend to alienate people, just as I/we might get annoyed trying to learn a foreign language, and that is a huge impediment.

In many cases it's not that we don't have the right tools, it's the orthodoxy and methodologies that need rewiring and often that's a lengthier, more radical process.


Cheers
David

Tale of two differing era journalists - digital vs traditionalist

He was respected in television, working for one of the most respected programme makers in the UK.

The other equally ambitious has started his tentative journey into broadcasting with a big bang.

It is the tale of two journalists, digital versus traditionalists and today presents the most starkly differing paths in which both now plough.

Today I heard from both acquaintances - one of them someone I have been mentoring

He young working as an intern is now a researcher for one of the biggest brand names in global broadcasting. Someone who's name is synonymous with world class.

And by all accounts talking to my mentoree on the phone, he's made his own personal brand quite something in the few weeks in tele. For in the short time as a researcher he's pulled in some heavyweights to the programme such as Kofi Annan.

When I just finished speaking to him, he'd just come from his employer's office, who'd offered to write him a reference, if he needed it.

"If he's willing to say something on tape so you can stick on your site that would do", I said.


The New Rules
Rule 101: When looking for a new job do it from a position of power, when you're working and on a high.

Rule 201: In today's climate it's far better to build a one page site and email a prospective employer with a 3 para letter and link to your work. Keep it very short.

Showreels and letters don't really work as well and cold calling, whilst bril, can sometimes leave you hanging.

Email, then follow it up. This is something I tell my Masters students all the while

Rule 301: don't expect to hear back from your source the first time. Email again later and then again.

Trad journalists
After twenty plus successful careers in broadcasting my other acquaintance I heard from today is retraining in social care. But in the meantime as I learned today he's cabbing.

It's giving him he says the flexibility to work his own hours.

There is nothing wrong with being a minicab driver. It is a much in need profession for many people who need to get around.

But I suppose it's not something you have in mind, after winning media awards.

I understand the thin line that divides broadcasting ( something you enjoy doing- it's not really a job) and anything else ( where you realise the strain).

We've all been there and will continue to tread these two finely separated paths.

For the fact is media/ broadcasting was mooted as a young person's game in the 90s. Today it is nothing less than a young person's world; the pay, the hours and the rewards.

But I can't finish without this news. Forty years of working for one of the world's most formidable news agencies, Peter who took compulsory redundacy has found a job as a lecturer. Never say never.