By Jackie Glosniak
February 26, 2014
Last week, I attended a journalism conference downtown sponsored by the Illinois College Press Association where journalism nuts from across Illinois could come together and hear what professionals in the industry have to say. Sessions offered ranged from expanding your presence on social media sites and hearing the skills that will set you apart from other journalism job candidates in the journalism world to hearing about one reporter from the Chicago Tribune’s unique rise to the top as a political reporter and fashion columnist.
Because I am particularly interested in working in local community journalism upon graduation, I attended a session based titled “Job Opportunities in Community Media.” From the get go, I was worried that the panelists would begin the talk with something along the lines of “Good luck, because there are fewer and fewer jobs out there” and “Well, our careers have been great, but don’t count on finding a print journalism job as easily as we did.”
However, to my surprise, the panelists had nothing but great things to say about the world of community journalism. In fact, after I left the panel, I asked myself why I went into the session having such negative predictions about what I thought they might say.
I guess the reason why I was worried about the professional journalist’s opinions on the industry was because time after time, I have heard people from both inside and outside of the media say that journalism is dead and that I will have the worst luck finding a job, if at all.
While I had a wonderful internship this summer in broadcast media and have attended several journalism conferences before, they have not come without their doubts from professionals in both the print and broadcast world expressing their worry for the direction in which journalism is headed. I’ve heard every concern in the book from “All newspapers will probably fold within the next decade” to “Everyone is now a journalist, so why even bother finding work as a professional?”
However, I have some advice for all my fellow journalism majors and media aficionados out there: Don’t panic!
While it is true that the journalism industry continues to rapidly change, I can confidently say that in some form or another, journalism is here to stay. While print journalism outlets may be on the decline, online and broadcast media has a bigger presence than ever! Just because less Chicago Sun-Times print editions circulate than 10 years ago, their presence online is just as important as ever before.
How many times have you read a piece of news on Facebook only to find out is it entirely not true or scattered with missing facts and typos? This alone should demonstrate the pubic should appreciate the hard work put in by professional journalists to get a story right-the first time around.
Additionally, in the community journalism session, one of the panelists described our era as a sort of “journalism renaissance.” I particularly found this remark rejuvenating, because it made me feel confident that even if the traditional mediums of journalism are changing, they are only changing for the better, and that is to attract a newer generation of audiences.
Twitter updates and online-only newspapers do not mean that journalism is dying. In fact, I think it is exciting to know that there are more mediums than ever for a journalist to express themselves through words and video than ever before.
There is always going to be a need for the public to know what’s going on and there will always need to be professional watchdogs who in a sense regulate and report on the ills of the public, especially within our governments or other civic leaders.
If journalism no longer existed, who else would look out for the good of the community? Words are a powerful platform for both expression and enlightenment, and I believe the aids of the Internet and instantaneous videos will only help journalists tell our stories better than before.
The moral of this all is that journalism is not dead, it is simply evolving into something greater. My generation of journalism students and those before us grew up picking up the newspaper on the front steps and only seeing the news three times a day on TV. Technology and demands for constant news are changing and I believe the jobs are not disappearing, just changing.
Back in July, President Obama stated in an interview that there is a big change in the media industry, comparing journalism to industries like manufacturing and retail. Obama suggested that like the disruptions that have occurred in those industries over the last few decades, the same rings true for journalism. What we have to recognize is that those old times aren’t coming.
The president likened the new media terrain to that of other industries that have experienced disruptive changes in recent years.
“What’s true in journalism is true in manufacturing and is true in retail,” he said. “What we have to recognize is that those old times aren’t coming back,” Obama said.
While I agree that the good old days of men smoking in newsrooms is long gone, I am hopeful that new times of exciting media and growing opportunities with modern media platforms lie ahead, providing a new wave of jobs for a new generation of journalists ready to take on the world.