unljnews

By JENNA GIBSON
J Alumni News staff

Andrea Vasquez

Andrea Vasquez became a journalism student to write. She transferred into the College of Journalism and Mass Communications at the end of her freshman year, expecting to learn how to report and write articles for a newspaper. But along with her writing courses, she had to take classes in page design, shooting and editing video, copy editing and photography.

The journalism industry is going through a transition, and journalism colleges like the CoJMC are changing their curricula to keep up.

“For a long time it was newspaper, and it was TV, and it was radio, and it was all pretty separate, and we knew what our students needed to be able to do,” said Jerry Renaud, a journalism faculty member. “The changes just came about so quickly. I don’t think we realized the intensity of it.”

So in the past few years the college has shifted its focus toward “converged” journalism, meshing broadcast, print, online and other multimedia to tell stories on multiple platforms. The college merged its news-editorial and broadcasting sequences into one called “journalism” to emphasize that students have to know more than just video or just print. And classes like advanced reporting now include preparation to tell stories in both text and on video.

While students are generally open to new ideas, Renaud said, some are not so keen on learning a whole new set of skills.

“It’s kind of an interesting challenge,” said Renaud, who teaches video in the new advanced reporting class. “There are some people who came into this college who love writing, who thought that would be their career. … It has been a rather abrupt change for them.”

Students get more than they bargained for

When Vasquez first started taking multimedia classes at the college, she was a bit frustrated.

“I really felt like it wasn’t what I signed up for,” she said. “I was kind of annoyed. … I just thought that (multimedia) could be someone else’s job.”

But Vasquez soon realized the importance of having a wide array of journalism skills. Before the two sequences were officially combined, Vasquez added a broadcast major and is now working with both print and video.

“As I learn more about the changes, it just seems like a transition, and it’s really just going to widen our options,” she said, “even if it’s a really overwhelming to-do list.”

Renaud understands the frustration for students.

“It appears that the expectations are higher than they were before. Is it unfair to students? Gosh, absolutely,” Renaud said. “It’s not fair, but it seems to be the reality at this time.”

Another big worry for Renaud is that the industry will fall into a “quantity over quality” mindset. If a reporter is trying to cover a story for the Web, capture and edit video and write a story for the paper the next day, the reporter may not spend enough time on each of those elements.

“I think we’re concerned that it is going to hurt their work,” he said. “When you are not going to be able to take the time to do the work the way you want, it just seems like everything is going to suffer in some fashion.”

Journalism in the real world

Josh Gillin

Since Joshua Gillin graduated from the CoJMC in 1998, he has experienced firsthand the transitioning journalism industry.

He has been a reporter and content editor for multiple sections, a copy editor and a page designer at newspapers in Pittsburgh, Savannah, Ga., and Philadelphia.

Now at the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, Gillin said he doesn’t really have a specific job description. He produces content for the paper and is also in charge of the Times’ free daily tabloid edition, tbt*, where everyone on the staff is expected to be flexible. He spends his time copy editing, writing a blog, reporting, laying out pages and doing research.

“I was really not prepared for any of these things in school” because the online world as it exists today was barely being developed when Gillin attended college.

“These have to be things that you have to be willing to learn,” he said. “If you’re coming out of school and you think you’re just going to be a reporter or you’re just going to be an editor, it’s not going to happen. You’re not going to work.

“There are a lot of people in the newsroom who are not willing to change, and they get phased out.”

Gillin agrees that journalists can get spread too thin but says modern newsrooms demand more and more from their people.

“I think there is a problem in which the industry equates speed with quality, and that’s not necessarily the case at all,” he said. “But with shrinking newsrooms, we don’t really have a choice.”

Today’s journalism graduates are better prepared for what will be expected of them in media careers and are often the most prepared to take on the new demands of the industry, Gillin said.

“They have been growing up in this media environment where they’re expected to digest multiple things at once,” he said. “They’re just used to it.”

Adjusting and adapting to change

The J school is trying to be sure that students are prepared for a market in which journalists — like Gillin — will likely end up doing multiple different jobs in a given day.

Vasquez said that from her learning in the classroom and in the field, she feels her education has prepared her well for a career in journalism.

“Between some of the basic things they’re giving me in class and some of the real world things professors are pushing me toward, I feel pretty comfortable for where I am,” she said. “There are a lot of potential and opportunities, but it’s a huge thing for students to undertake.”

It is overwhelming sometimes, having to be proficient in so many areas, Vasquez said. But she sees the potential for new ways to present information in the future and realizes the importance of having more than one skill, especially in a shrinking job market.

More skills equal more options

Alina Selyukh

Alina Selyukh, a broadcasting, news-editorial and political science student who recently graduated from the journalism college, agreed.

“The more skills you have the more options you have,” she said. “It really just expands your options. And you need those options.”

Selyukh, for example, has worked for the student newspaper as a reporter and editor and as a member of the ABC News on Campus bureau and has interned at NET TV and at CNN in Moscow.

With all her experience, Selyukh has landed an internship at Thomson Reuters in Washington, D.C., for the summer, where she will be both writing and working with video.

And opportunities like those are what the faculty are hoping will be available to all their students.

“Our goal is to give students the best education that we can and help them to be successful now and in the future,” Renaud said. “While we don’t think [the college’s current curriculum] is a perfect system yet, while we see there are more changes to be made, we at least feel better that we’re sending people out, and if somebody asks if they can do something they can say ‘yes.’”