Photo by Flickr user EIU
Now that I’m in a university environment, I’ve been thinking about the skills I learned as a journalism student, and what schools are teaching students today.
Ideally, a student should graduate from journalism school with skills that prepare them to walk into a newsroom – any newsroom – and thrive. (These skills should of course be in addition to sound news judgement and an understanding of journalism ethics and the importance of responsible reporting.)
So here’s my grocery list of ideal skills for the newsroom newbie:
Skills students should have coming out of j-school:
- Tweeting/live blogging
- Deadline writing, multiple webhits
- Blogging on WordPress
- Shooting/editing photos, video
- Audio editing
- Storytelling through Storify
Skills that would put them at the top of the heap:
- Mapping data with simple Google Fusion tables
- Database journalism with Caspio, Google
- Interactive storytelling through sliderocket, thinglink, etc.
- Infographics, like those created at easel.ly, visual.ly
What am I missing? Add your thoughts in the comments below
