College media experience must include multimedia

  Author's note: This post is being written as part of the latest round in the Carnival of Journalism, a periodic exercise in which a wide variety of authors blog on the same topic with a common deadline. This month's topic addresses how college media organizations should  adapt to the changing journalistic environment. 

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   Author's note II: For JCarn members and other interested individuals who find this post, it is worth noting that it is made in a blog for a class in Multimedia Writing, a course in which students take a deep dive into multimedia storytelling and curation skills. Most of the other posts and comments in this  "Multimedia Musings" blog come from the students as class assignments to blog about interesting and noteworthy developments in the worlds of digital journalism, social media and media technology. Many posts are quite good; please check them out!

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   Student media organizations today must adapt to the changing journalistic environment by adopting a truly "multimedia first" mindset, with students learning cross-platform skills that allow them to create a portfolio of work in text, audio/video and curated materials. Nothing less will prepare them for the world beyond college.
   Part of the prompt suggests we approach this as "advice to college media organizations or as if you were a theoretical adviser or manager of a student news organization." I don't have to do this in any theoretical sense as the prompt suggests, since I am chair of a Department of Media and Communication with a variety of student media organizations. While I don't advise the organizations directly, I'm not exactly shy about giving feedback to the students and the two college staff members who do advise them. Among the things I emphasize:

Multimedia storytelling

 Good writing is essential to journalism and other media genres (e.g. public relations), so learning to work with words and create text is the starting point. But while writing well is a necessary skill to impart a message effectively, it's no longer sufficient for effective storytelling. Working across media, especially in text and video, is crucial.

And so while our institution has distinct organizations for print and online news and for broadcast journalism, students are encouraged to work for both, and many do. A reporter's video packages can appear on the website of either organization, or one reporter's work might be the subject of a print-edition story and a portion of the news broadcast. Students learn from the start to report in multiple media.

In terms of clips, this allows students to create a multimedia e-portfolio of links to online text stories and video packages that show their versatility as storytellers.

Practical application of classroom lessons 

These organizations provide the practical application of what students learn in the classroom, especially through the required Multimedia Writing course (the academic experience with which this blog is associated). The same skills described above -- working in text for online, and in video, and in using both to tell a story with complementary (not redundant) components -- lie at the heart of the course. Curation is emphasized as well.This course is not a "pure journalism" play but nonetheless imparts best practices across all these skills needed for effective multimedia journalism.

Think "digital first"

One of the two most prominent criticisms I've had for the Courier in feedback this year has been, "Why wasn't that story on the Web?" (The other is mechanical errors in the print edition such as spelling, punctuation and grammar errors. I'm pleased to report the students are doing better on both accounts.)

This is a "hard sell" for some students. Working on the print edition has a focused purpose of producing an end-product, very similar to the typical academic experience of gearing up to write a term paper or complete a project by a well-established deadline. It's what they are comfortable doing. This could be why many college media organizations are stuck in an old-school frame of mind (literally). 

But it is necessary for student journalists to escape that comfort zone and learn to think about journalism as a process, rather than a product  (A phrase I can't claim to have originated and have seen associated with, among others, J-Carn's own DigiDave as well as Steve Buttry and Jeff Jarvis.) 

But even though I can't claim the phrase I still try to own it -- and emphasize to the students that it is the mindset that will best prepare them for life in the real world. This applies for a traditional legacy organization, an emerging digital start-up or even a non-journalistic career such as advertising or public relations. After all, a lot of PR these days  consists of working as a "reporter" who "covers" an organization for online presentation of the information to reach the audience directly rather than through the platform of legacy media.

It's been a long time since I've been on the hiring line in a news organization, but when I talk to friends who still are they emphasize the need for today's entry-level news professionals to have this sense of digital-first urgency, cross-platform ability and excellent wordsmithing skills underlying it all. Today's college media organizations need to provide this set of skills if they want to claim they are adequately preparing their students for what lies on the other side of the graduation stage.

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Addendum: Carnival host Pat Thornton already has started to assemble the roundup of this edition's entries. Check them out!