Probably a surprise to no one, but a study cited today in Journalism.co.uk states that European Journalists are producing more original content online, but have mostly self-taught themselves the relevant skills to do so.
Fully 67% of those journalists polled from the UK, Belgium, France, Germany, Holland, Spain and Sweden said they taught themselves digital skills, whereas only one-in-nine received training from their media organizations.
Despite the above statistics, and the fact that the journalists feel great pressure to produce more content while facing down concerns about job and industry security, 84% of the journos polled said they were “as happy or happier” in their current roles.
And this fact speaks to something I’ve been saying for awhile now - that innovative narrative and evolving multimedia pieces offer something to both the journalist and the audience, and that these mutual benefits create a feedback loop between the two.
New, layered pieces allow journalists to explore stories in new ways - through visuals, sound design, text, video, etc. - and audiences are, in turn, freshly engaged by these pieces in ways that they have not been (lately) with the usual text-on-page model. This engagement brings audiences back to multimedia pieces (and finds new, web-savvy audiences) and, again, engages these audiences for news outlets.
However, the fact that these journalists are forced to train themselves to create these new / stronger relationships, and the fact that so few traditional media outlets are participating in networked journalism, speaks volumes about traditional media’s role in the evolving media landscape.
Which is to say, traditional media is clearly benefiting from new ideas and storytelling forms in journalism, but it is not doing an especially good job of fostering, stewarding or seeking out these new journalistic techniques.
This report also shows a trend that my own research as shown - that journalists, by and large, have a good sense of where things are going and are trying to lead the way, and are not to blame for most of the turmoil in the industry.
The full survey can be viewed here.
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Lyle Bateman
Siobhan Curious
TheWestBank
King Kaufman
Joan Walsh
Kerry Lauerman
Salon.com
Comments
There are more programs in schools, better incorporation of feedback loops with audiences, and, by and large, better pints in the pubs. Journalistic haven, really!
Thanks for the comment, too.
I found the report's section on PR and the withering of the standard press release particularly interesting. (Of course, the report was produced by a PR company). It's still a wild, kicky world in the blogosphere, though PR folks are figuring out which "influencers" to go after. This quote was telling:
"The blogosphere continues feature in the news process and according to Technorati, 175,000 new blogs are created daily. Naturally, journalists are unable to search extensively for informed comment, but the PR industry can be sure that they will have preferred bloggers and forums."
Oh, yes, they do. And maybe it's not quite so easy these days for those who want to spin the news to keep up.
Also, regarding Harvard Extension school, that's good news. I've actually seen a few newer / multimedia grad programs in the US, but they tend to be at the highest levels (Medill, etc.). Hopefully the trickle down will reach us journeymen! But I do think there's a disconnect between the speed at which journos and citizen journos are pushing the craft and how slowly programs are appearing.
Either way, thanks for the comments, all.
Also, I have more robust content on my site, about all the evolving state of journalism today:
http://www.faunacorporation.com
Have a look if you are interested.