E-Media Tidbits

Niall Kennedy, via Flickr (CC license) Mark Glaser, of the PBS blog MediaShift, recently published a piece that inspired Mac Slocum to write this series.

Over at the PBS blog MediaShift, Mark Glaser's recent analysis of journalism education, Journalism Education Stuck in Same Oldthink Mode as Big Media, got me thinking about core Web skills I wish I'd acquired in journalism school.

To put it another way: What would I learn then based on what I know now?

First, I'd learn how to be a researcher and guide. The sheer amount of Web-based information is a double-edged sword. All this great stuff is wonderful in theory, but wading through page after page of search results is tiresome (which is precisely why search optimization experts aim for a top-10 keyword result).

But as a Web journalist, I spend my days sorting through articles, blog posts and RSS feeds. It's a constant hunt for "something interesting." While I've honed my skills over the years, it would have been wonderful to develop this ability in an academic environment.

These days, all journalism students should be introduced to research and organization techniques. Show them how to use a feed reader, show them how to stay on top of a specific trend via e-mail alerts and search feeds, show them how to develop source relationships through blogs, instantmessaging and e-mail.

Some journalism teachers -- myself included -- tend to overestimate the Web skills of the current generation. We mistake technological comfort with research expertise. However, there's little transferable skill between a well-managed MySpace profile and online research.

We should show these students the Web tools we use because they're the same techniques they should use. And we shouldn't assume they already know about them.

(Next skill: generating traffic...)