Becca Barth, becca.barth@gmail.com
James Grega, diehardbuckeye02@aim.com
Brandon Saho, brandon@tristatefootball.com
Getting involved – this was the most important piece of advice that was given to the members of the E.W. Scripps High School Journalism Workshop during the roundtable discussion on contemporary journalism issues.
“Getting involved in any of the student run publications gives you the chance to get your name out there,” said Dr. Hugh Martin, Associate Director of the Scripps school and one of the leaders of the discussion. The other members who helped in the discussion were all Ohio University students; Catherine Roebuck, a magazine journalism major; Will Tapper, a broadcast journalism major; and Aadam Soorma, a magazine journalism graduate.
While the roundtable, at first, helped to explain the workings of the Scripps School, when the discussion turned to the skills necessary to succeed in contemporary journalism, the focus shifted to the importance of online journalism in the modern world.
“Knowing how to write a story that will reach an online audience seems to be the most important skill in the future of journalism,” explained Tapper. Tapper's advice, of course, reflects the boom of blogs and other online sources over the past few years.
According to Technorati.com’s list of most visited blogs, popular blogs such as the Huffington Post can reach up to four million page views per month.
This expansion of journalism onto the web allows anybody with internet access to create their own news websites. While this may be changing the face of journalism, The members of the discussion agreed that professional journalists are, and will always be, the most trusted sources for news.
“Citizen journalists look to us for our norms and values and ethics,” said Soorma.
Clearly, the roundtable discussion allowed the students at the Scripps High School Journalism Workshop, to see that they could be creating the standards of future journalism.
