Journalism experts from around the country gathered at USC Annenberg on Sept. 26 to discuss the changing state of media, and concluded there are more opportunities than challenges facing the field.
“This truly is the dawn of the golden age of journalism,” said Mitch Gelman (pictured above), senior executive producer for CNN.com. “The question is, ‘How do we go from the hand-wringing to embracing the change?’”
Gelman joined Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting director Jon Sawyer, American University J-Lab director Jan Schaffer, and Spot.us founder David Cohn in a discussion titled “What Does Journalism in a Changing World Look Like?,” part of an all-day faculty symposium analyzing the changing world of journalism. The panelists were optimistic about the future of journalism, but also had recommendations for how to keep the craft moving forward in a positive direction.
“How can we get the most mileage out of everything we do?” asked Sawyer, citing the need for smart economic decisions when deciding on large projects. “You can go overseas to work on a foreign documentary, come back and take the footage to schools, record that and turn it into a story, and then put it on YouTube.”
For a project on the war in Iraq, Sawyer’s Pulitzer Center packaged stories for print and radio reports that later turned into documentaries. The Center then uploaded them to YouTube and had 289,000 page views.
“These tools we have online are so much richer than I ever dreamed of – the potential is there, we just have to figure out how to make it work,” Sawyer said.
Schaffer said journalism schools around the country can do more to prepare students for the workforce after college, especially with the growing popularity of “community journalism,” which in essence creates competition with mainstream media.
“Citizen journalists don’t care if there’s no business model,” said Schaffer, who was the business editor and Pulitzer Prize winner at the Philadelphia Inquirer. “They see it as volunteering. They may be 50 years old, done coaching their kids, and want to give a voice to the voiceless – especially within ethnic media.”
She recommended four steps journalism schools could take to help their students: Launch journalism entrepreneur programs; teach students to virally market their own stories through blogging and links; pair academics with leaders in the industry; and apply for grants from places such as the Knight Foundation to study new ideas.
Cohn argued that journalism has never changed.
“It has always been about the exchange of information that is honest, factual, transparent and has value,” said Cohn, who is a recent winner of the Knight News Challenge Grant.
He said one of the keys for the future of journalism to be successful is experiment as much as possible.
“We can experiment with networked reporting, new editorial structures, storytelling tools, participatory journalism and partnerships between professional and amateurs.”
Gelman said USC Annenberg has embraced the fundamentals of journalism even through a technological transformation in the world.
“No other school has embraced this challenge like the Annenberg School,” he said.
