The future of journalism is here, right now, at The Poynter Institute.
The future of journalism walks through the doors of Poynter every June
with eyes wide and hearts aflutter. It's the Poynter Institute's
biggest and longest-running program, the
Summer Fellowship for Young Journalists.
This year, 32 photographers, designers, writers and broadcasters make
up the 2006 summer fellowship crew. They made the cut because of their potential --
not their accomplishments. They will spend six weeks polishing up the
skills that will make them better. And they will develop a network of mentors
and friends that will help guide their careers for a lifetime.
If the past is any indicator, these young journalists might be your colleagues -- or even your boss -- someday.
Some of our recent grads already are.
Matt Thompson (Summer Fellowship
class of '03)
is deputy editor for interactive media at the
Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Adam Kushner, (also '03) is
assistant managing editor of
The New Republic.
William Sullivan (
'05) is interactive projects editor at
PalmBeachPost.com.
But I don't want to brag about the accomplishments of our past grads.
It would take up too much space. I'd rather tell you about
this
exciting class of current Poynter fellows and, to a greater extent, what's so
great about the incoming crop of new journalists everywhere.
For one thing, we always
marvel at the new kids' computer skills. But this year's fellows seem to have made a sizable leap in their use
of digital technology over what we've seen in past years. Their resumes were created with professional
software. Most of them have well-designed Web sites of their own. Once
we announced the names of the summer fellows, they immediately created
their own
MySpace group, as if that were the most natural way to
communicate.
This group belongs to a generation that has few inhibitions about
getting to know the world through cyberspace. They plotted its
path to Poynter, searched for St. Petersburg story ideas and even made plans
for dinner -- all before stepping foot in town.
This generation of new journalists has spent its formative years
online. For this group, MySpace is old news, just one more tool to use at work and
at play. They've found sources for stories by trolling chat rooms and
networking sites. They have conducted interviews by using text-messaging and other
Internet messaging systems.
Their predecessors were the bridge between old and new. But this group might be the
beginning of the New World. The majority of their bylines and credit lines will
not always be in ink on a printed page. Instead, their names will go down as
pixels in a Google search.
But the biggest difference in the class of 2006 is their composure in
the face of bad news. Since high school, they've heard the
doom-and-gloom messages about dying newspapers and fading TV news.
They're not worried -- or they wouldn't be knocking on the newsroom door.
Instead, they are excited about the possibilities. They see through the
clouds and can envision journalism in 20 years -- or even 50 years. They
tolerate ambiguity well. They are accustomed to constant anxiety.
So keep your eye on them -- not just our 32 fellows, but all the
new journalists who will set foot in your newsroom for the first time this
summer.
If you'd like to keep your eye specifically on our summer program fellows, you can
see their work here, at www.poyntersummerfellows.org, in a couple of weeks. If you'd like to meet them,
feel free to send a representative to our day-long recruiting fair in
six weeks, on July 12. For more information on sending a recruiting rep, contact Jessica Sandler at jsandler@poynter.org.
