Change is Evident, but Welcomed

Just as news is always changing, the news industry is never the same as it was in the past. From print to broadcast to digital, journalism has seen itself become radically different and yet more versatile at the same time. That said, I applaud the changing nature of the news industry. It allows billions of people the opportunity to comb through different mediums to access their news. There are some traditionalists who only pick up newspapers instead of their remote controls to check their local broadcasts, but we need to learn to adapt to the fact that journalism encompasses so much more than newspapers. Personally, I prefer getting my news digitally just because of the ease of browsing a webpage, but there really isn’t any advantage that one genre of journalism has over another.

In this present time, the most important way a journalist, like myself, can improve is too become much more well-rounded. When I attended the AAJA convention last summer in Detroit, Michigan, I talked to Mrs. Mara Schiavocampo (Emmy Award-winning journalist from MSNBC), and she told me that in her line of work, she taught herself to do everything broadcast-related: report, film, edit, anchor, to name a few. She was basically a one-woman team. I totally concur with her. No one likes a one- trick pony. In order to become indispensable, it’s extremely important to learn every skill of your trade. Not only will you become more successful, but you’ll also be less likely to be laid off if you work for a news publication/corporation!

In order to be effective in my current position, I know that I’ll have to experience chasing stories in hard-to-reach places. To anyone starting out, reporting on events at school may seem like a novelty, but after years of doing so, it becomes routine to the point that you find yourself reporting on the same events year after year. It’ll be beneficial for not only myself, but for everyone, to venture outside of our campus to become community reporters. By doing so, I’ll become more confident when it comes to more difficult stories. It’s all about expanding boundaries.