FLORIDA - Journalists are facing serious problems in the print industry, but are also faced with a new opportunity--switching platforms so they can work everywhere.
"Newspapers are finding video skills at television stations, and stations are finding interactive thinking at newspapers," says Regina McCombs of Poynter Online. The way in which news organizations produce content is similar across all platforms, so diversifying the staff makes sense.
As news organizations branch out online, they find "gaps in skills within their own staffs," Mccombs says. Because of the advent of the Internet, journalists need to have a greater "visual literacy," and be able to manage video or photos. Photographers must also be able to produce written pieces fast for news.
Journalists with skills across platforms--working on the Web, video, photography--are able to "take chances on jobs in a new medium."
Chances taken are often rewarded, McCombs says, as journalists can help their careers "grow" and "maintain passion for their work" without getting stuck in one medium, and subject to its pitfalls.
People willing to "expand their knowledge," McCombs writes, "have many more places to find work." This may be the "bright spot" in a suffering industry.
Many journalists who transition from TV to radio to print news to online don't think of themselves as transitioning between mediums, according to McCombs, because the basic idea is the same: they are still journalists, no matter where they work. (Source: Editors Webblog)