Across every media format has been the news of the journalism industry’s death. Television anchors, newspaper reports, and radio disc jockeys have bemoaned the state of the industry for years and warned young students, such as myself, to avoid majoring in journalism at all costs.
Despite the constant moans that there are no jobs and that all newspapers will be dead in a few, short years, there actually might be some hope. John Cutter, the deputy online editor of OrlandoSentinel.com, thinks that as long as you continue to evolve and adapt, you have a shot at surviving in the journalism industry.
One of the keys to success is to develop yourself as a personal brand. Instead of the old days in which reporting and then turning in your story was all that was needed to be done, it’s now very important to be active on Facebook and Twitter. Things like search engine optimization are now part of the reporter’s job, something which would be completely foreign to reporters of five to ten years ago.
The constant changes in technology have caused reporters to be ready to report at virtually any time of the day. Instead of just working on one story all day and then submitting it at 8 or 9 p.m., reporters are now expected to turn in the story right away and then just work on updating the story the rest of the day.
The risks of plagiarism, fabrication and other mistakes have increased tenfold with all of the new emphasis on immediacy. Reporters no longer have time to just fool around at the court house in hopes of maybe landing a story, they are expected to always be out doing something. The quantity of well-reported long-form stories continue to decrease each year, as reporters have more and more on their plate to accomplish.
