the newspaper business

The days of writers becoming journalists because of a love of writing and a desire to change the world is ending. Including television, not just print. Television news has been taken over by the beauty queens.

Here’s a writer that is struggling with her future. Her post was based on a Forbes article which she didn’t link to but quoted from on her blog. Here are here feelings. 

If I didn’t feel obsolete before, that pretty much did it. Yet I’m still craving this career that will never pay well, never be the same and never get the respect it used to deserve. This really isn’t news. I know that my career is threatened by so much right now. And it’s dying a slow death. I knew that after college. But still. I try to hope…

She asked, “what now? Teach?”

My answer is no, learn. Learn to think multi-media.

• Learn to shoot a digital still camera well. This is a skill that can be mastered. It doesn’t require the motor drives and SLR’s of a professional. You won’t be shooting moving targets, you will be shooting scenes or people.
• Learn to shoot video. Not television quality. But “good enough” quality. Learn how to pan smoothly. Learn not to zoom. Learn about backgrounds and closeups. Learn what can be done with good editing.
• Learn to record audio. Natural sounds and sound bites that can be added to a slideshow to create a great experience for the reader.

Quality writers will always be in demand. Quality writers with a multi-media outlook will be in higher demand. But certainly somebody told you that you’ll never get rich in the newspaper business. So there still has to be the passion to realize you are fulfilling a mission that is so important it is written into the constitution.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 19th, 2008 at 11:30 am and is filed under First Amendment, Future of Newspapers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.