Issues in multimedia journalism

It seems incredible, in a world where we are witnessing such drastic change to the media industry from citizen journalism to job losses, that the institutions training the reporters of tomorrow aren’t necessarily providing students with the skills to survive beyond their courses.

New York University journalism student Alana Taylor wrote this embed report for MediaShift criticising the university and her professor for not sufficiently covering new media:

I was hoping NYU would offer more classes where I could understand the importance of new media, what it means, how to adapt to the new way of reporting

Some establishments are incorporating online and multimedia subjects, like our university, and, realistically, it is difficult to conceptualise what the ideal new media journalism course would consist of.  Here is a list of the things Mindy McAdams, university lecturer and blogger, believes journalism students need to know right now.  But the difficulty is, with the rate of technological advancement how do we ensure content is relevant and avoid overwhelming students?

This is an article discussing whether new media can really be taught.

Perhaps we should also be looking toward the media industry itself to invest in training for journalists and increase their own profits.  Here is an interesting interview with the BBC’s Manager for Online and Informal Learning on how they are approaching the need to educate staff.

Below is a video of Paul Bradshaw, a journalism professor in England sharing his views on not only how to ensure students succeed in the ‘media market’, and whether we should be preparing them for a career in newspapers considering the current media landscape.

 The term ‘mojo’ refers to mobile journalism. This is where reporters go out and gather stories relying solely on a mobile phone to record, film or capture a story.  Mobile phone devices today are equiped with digital camera’s, voice recording systems and video camera’s. They can also readily access the internet which allows reporters to post their stories online almost straight away no matter where they are.  In this information age people want their news more readily which mojo journalism can provide by being able to print stories online straight away.

This form of reporting is very popular in Scandinavia, the UK, Europe, the US and Africa. Othe developed countries such as Australia however don’t utilize this form of futuristic reporting yet because of high mobile internet and call charges.

Barth-Nilsen along with National broadcasters in Norway plan to use mojo content for mainstream platforms such as television and are running trials to see how it performs.

The Reuters news agency equipped it’s journalists with a mobile journalism toolkit with the aim of being more efficient and producing stories in a new way.

Here is a video of Reuters discussing their mojo tools.

Multimedia journalism has forced challenges on traditional journalistic practices. Once, newspapers like The Age and The Herald Sun were the number one option for news readers. But with the rise of the digital age, newspapers are being challenged by techology that understands the busy lifestyle and need for convenience of most Australians.

With rises in digital media, Australia has seen some changes in major media organisations. Fairfax, Australia’s leading media comany, recently cut approximately 550 jobs; about 5% of the workforce. The process of cutting jobs or as Fairfax calls it, a “headcount reduction”, they aim to reduce costs and keep their shareholders happy.

But will this sacrifice the quality of news produced by Fairfax? At what point do quality and the readers suffer?

These are the questions employees are asking in relation to this large reduction of staff. Fairfax defends its decision by saying the quality of reporting will not be sacrficed because the job cuts are within the production area. But this includes sub-editors who have a big say in the look and tone of the paper, as well as the headlines that appear with the story.

Journalists are saying, “It is like cutting down half the orange trees in the orchid and still expecting to produce the same number of oranges”.

So is this what multimedia journalism is going to do traditional media? Will newspapers fade out and leave digital technology the main source of news in Australia? Only time will tell.