A journalistic world where personal branding is a lifestyle, managing micro communities is second nature and developing areas of specialist knowledge is essential for survival in what is a freelance work sphere where multiple revenue streams as a sole trader are the norm.
Welcome to the lot of a journalist in 2012!
That’s my personal summary of far more detailed discussions spent considering such things as part of the MELD experience last week.
Held at the futuristic Sandbox at UCLAN, the two-day industry think-tank to consider what skills the journalist of the future might need prompted some interesting dilemmas.
Looking forward such a relatively short amount of time was a tricky experience, not least because the audience who will be old enough to vote in three years time, are one of the first who will be true digital natives.
Today’s teenagers have only ever known mobile phones, games, the internet and on demand services. They are also unlikely to have got the newspaper habit, so how will their experience of the world impact on journalism?
But as we all wrestled with the issues of who will be funding the journalistic endeavour of the future, how organisations will need to change their structures and the skill sets individuals might be faced with, there was one aspect which sparked little controversy – that the next generation journalist is most likely to be a freelance worker.
And for that individual journalist, the future which emerged from our discussions operated in a complex personal ecosphere where some sort of web presence was the essential hub of activity, where earnings could come from sponsorship and affiliate relationships alongside mainstream media commissions for content packages, or access to the special interest networks which they had nurtured and managed.
Contemplating the short-term with some of those who may help shape the future of the industry was a thought-provoking experience – and wasn’t purely an intellectual exercise.
Some of the input from the sessions will help inform journalism educators about the tools the journalists of the future might need.
I’d be very interested to hear what other journalists think the future might hold – join in with the time travel if you will! What do you think lies in store? Is the scenario detailed above a world which you’d embrace or recoil from? Where do you see the journalist of 2012? Thoughts most welcome.
Dim Sum Digital 
No one has the complete picture regarding the future of journalism; prognostication is dicey at best on this. I do see what I have called interconnected communication as the basis for this future, whatever else it portends. My recent post on this, titled “Amazing media audience defines itself and its role” revisits the concept of “The People Formerly Known as the Audience” and can be found at communicatorsandcommunications.com a previous post from which you have earlier cited.
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Sarah, if what you say about the future individual journalist operating in a complex personal ecosphere where some sort of web presence was the essential hub of activity, and where earnings could come from sponsorship and affiliate relationships alongside mainstream media commissions for content packages etc., then should someone who is about to graduate with a journalism degree be deliberately pursuing this sort of career? Or are you suggesting that this is perhaps more of an incidental end resulting from the way that younger people conduct themselves online today?
I feel as if I am bridging the generational divide as the industry I have wanted to enter was one of the old journalism. All the old autobiographies paint a romantic picture of a hardnosed journalist. Of course I am aware of the changing role of a journalist, but how does one reconcile both the old and new. You mention that today’s teenagers have only ever known mobile phones, games, the internet and on demand services, and are also unlikely to have got the newspaper habit. I suspect that I, as someone with a politics undergraduate degree and hopefully soon a master’s journalism degree, might not be the subject of this assertion. Nevertheless, I will certainly be hoping to be breaking into the industry in 2012.
I think that my MA Multi-Media Journalism degree at Bournemouth University is in itself proof of the changing world that young journalists are entering into – though you wouldn’t believe it after looking at some of the more established journalism schools in the UK. However it seems to me that the biggest problem that my generation of journalists have is the pressure to carve out this new niche in an industry that is shrinking. With arguably more debt that any other generation before, the vast majority of people that I learn and speak with on a daily basis want the security of a staff job.
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Hi Joel, you raise some interesting points. It would seem that what you describe as ‘old journalism@ i.e. a staff job with one large employer is indeed now more the subject of a rather ‘romantic picture’ of the past. Just look at the job vacancies currently on offer in the industry to provide evidence for this view. While I can understand that you and your peers may seek that security, the reality of what’s going to be around when you qualify next year may be somewhat different, but that’s not to say it’s a depressing one. I don’t subscribe to the doom and gloom mongering view – the opportunities brought about by a changing landscape where we are seeing many new players emerging into the news ecosphere at a time when the barriers to entry for people to publish or broadcast are very low, bring along different challenges for new journalists, but those with an entrepreneurial spirit will find many doors open to them.
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As a first year journalism student at UCLan, I’ve got a very keen eye on all social media/journalism happenings, and the topic of convergence.
In my opinion, good journalism will always pay money. Whether advertising recovers or paywalls save the day, I think that journalism will still adapt to remain a profit-making business.
Newspapers were worried about being killed off by BBC broadcasts back in the day, because they couldn’t keep up with the speed of news. Instead newspapers adapted and found their own niche. I think perhaps this is what it’s about? Finding the distinct subject area, and appreciating that every publication/website has it’s own strong areas which you value over others. I’ve stopped reading The Guardian of late (switched to NYT), but whenever an interesting article comes up in my twitter feed I’ll still have a browse at the website. I’d like to think that I’ll have some sort of job by the end of my course, and that if the quality of my writing was high enough it would enable me to get that coveted staff writing post…
Reading it back my comment is terribly unstructured and rambling, clearly I’ve missed the golden rule of being succinct as a journalist!
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I think that JSA is correct in saying that good journalism will always pay money. Also, I think that no matter how writing mediums change, journalists need to adapt and have to keep the same basic skills. A bloger can write something but they don’t have the same ethics, research skills and grammatical skills as journalists who have gone to school for it specifially. I think the future of journalism is hard to tell because it is always changing, but I did find this website helpful. It has interviews with professionals about the future of journalism.
http://www.ourblook.com/index.php?topic=future_of_journalism
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