Last week I posted Part 1 of my two-part series, “Advice from professors: what college journalism students need to know“.
As I said then, of all the professors who responded to my survey, Northwestern University’s Michele Weldon and the University of Alabama’s George Daniels provided the most in-depth answers.
This week, I have printed their mostly full responses below. The professors, who cover very different subjects at their schools, talk about the state of journalism in 2013, the positive and negative trends facing the industry, and their advice for young journalists as they enter the industry.
1. The state of journalism in 2013 is _________. Why?
George Daniels, University of Alabama: The state of journalism is looking better than it was a few years ago. Thanks to people like Warren Buffett and Jeff Bezos, great newspapers are being purchased and given new life. As Gannett and Belo become one and as Local TV LLC (formerly New York Times TV stations) joins Tribune, these larger groups will have a larger national footprint. This can only mean that Tribune and Gannett will be able to do more award-winning journalism reaching more eyeballs. On the radio side, National Public Radio is putting out some great work every day, launching new initiatives like its CodeSwitch Project that recently presented a golden opportunity for NPR to showcase diverse stories that would not otherwise be told.
These are all examples of journalism that is looking great, better than it does when we were only hearing about staff cutbacks and ethical lapses and lots of bad news. I’m excited about what I see and what is to come.
Michele Weldon, Northwestern University: The state of journalism in 2013 is vibrant. There are more outlets for content than ever before and an enormous audience hungry for quality stories in multiple forms. Whatever platform you want to deliver your content, whatever kinds of stories you want to tell — you can do it all if you can do it well.