Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Berbercarpet, via Flickr (CC license) What kinds of skills will REALLY get these journalism students hired?

At the university where I teach, Cal State Northridge, we've been trying to firm up our approach to "backpack journalism." Over the past month, we've had several meetings with editors and reporters from four dailies in the area, the L.A. Times, the L.A. Daily News, the Orange County Register, and the Ventura County Star. Our question: What would make them want to hire our graduates?

Not surprisingly, the first criterion was the ability to write a good story. But they all quickly added that any multimedia experience, academic or not (running a blog, video editing, etc.) would be seen as a big plus on a resume.

The most interesting comment, made and backed up by several of our contacts, was that even if students had no technical expertise, they needed the ability to conceive a story as sequential segments that could eventually frame slideshow or video coverage. That's quite a departure from the old inverted pyramid.

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