The Internet is changing media and the media are changing their reporters into hybrids, who now need to be three or four different reporters at the same time.
What is New Mexico State University doing to better prepare their journalism students for a fast-paced digital world where a reporter's tools are not just a notepad and pen, but a camera, a video camera and a voice recorder?
"Journalists need to be able to write, tape, edit, take photographs and then put everything online," said Anne Hubbell, Journalism and Mass Communications interim department head.
"Journalism students need to know how to be diverse in story telling," Hubbell said. That knowledge sets a journalist apart from others who have only had training in one topic. More people are getting their news from the Internet, which makes it hard for a journalist who only writes for print, or photographers who only take pictures and are not familiar with audio or video.
"We want to offer more convergence classes and encourage them to take other classes … not in their specialty," Hubbell said. "So they can be prepared to take whatever job will get them into the industry and then they can work their way up."
To help with the brewing of new courses, a meeting was held on Feb. 11 with media professionals from El Paso and Las Cruces to discuss and brainstorm what the real world wanted out of journalism students when they applied for jobs after they graduated. They want fresh-out-of-college journalists to know everything and they want them to be familiar with the Web because that's where it's heading, said Bruce Berman, assistant professor of journalism and mass communications.
"It was very valuable," Berman said about the meeting. "We learned a lot and we learned we're right on track."
He is currently writing material for a new course that deals with media convergence which includes video, audio and sound slides. Berman also teaches documentary photo journalism and photo journalism, the latter being an emphasis on more news-type photo journalism. He has already taught six courses in photo journalism convergence where students submitted their work at documentaryshooters.com. In this current semester, the Web site features videos, he said.
The basics of journalism will remain the same, Berman said. The fundamentals of journalism are simply to know how to write and tell a story for the public. It doesn't matter what kind of medium is used to tell a story, whether it be streaming video, podcasts, radio, photos or articles, the basics are still there and are still very important.
"Most people under the age of 30 get their news online," said Pam Porter, professor of journalism and mass communications.
"Print media, or newspapers, around the country are getting smaller and shutting down because readership is dwindling mostly because everything's going to the Web," Porter said. And on the Web are tons of video, audio and endless stories - that otherwise wouldn't fit on a newspaper - that interests viewers and is basically free. That's why it's very important for a journalist to have many skills.
Porter teaches one course on media convergence already. It's a special topics course in media convergence, from which the NMSU Merge Magazine was born, nmsumerge.com.
After just one semester of media convergence, one course was just not enough, Porter said. There is much more to cover and more to learn about media convergence and learning skills to converge. The combination of her and Berman's courses will give journalists an edge and some serious skills for the cyber-world, she said.
"Journalists need to know it all … to incorporate everything online," Porter said. "It's really popular and students like learning the skills they need."
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