I am at the University of South Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communications and this is the last month before I graduate. Journalism and I have had a rocky relationship; a love-hate relationship you can say. But with that in mind, even though I have periods of doubt about my future as a journalist, my passion for it can't be questioned. I love journalism and believe that it should prosper. It is a need for a society to be informed. The health of newspapers is at stake. It's all come so fast. In my freshman year of college, five years ago, I was told newspaper readership was down. "oh well," I thought to myself, "it's just a phase." I never thought that in my senior year, I would be contemplating the many ways I can do my part to help save newspapers from its impending doom. I can't believe what I seen already. The Seattle PI has already gone completely online, a sign of things to come. Not only am I graduating and going off on my own into the workforce of a country with an 8.5 perecent unemployment rate and a recession, but the industry I want to work for is going down the drain.
I'm in what the USC School of Journalism calls "Senior Semester," a time where about 10 to 15 print journalism students come together and work from 9 to 5 everyday and produce a newspaper, The Carolina Reporter. It's great! It's a working newsroom and has reintroduced my love for writing and reporting. In addition, it's given me the chance to learn multimedia tools like Quark, Illustrator, Audacity.. etc. Unfortunately, my job opportunites look bleak. I want to know what I can do.
Content isn't the reason for this drop in readership of tangible newspapers... so what is it? Why must we give up the art of newspapers for it to just go online, when online can be supplemental. Why can't we have both? These are the questions I keep rolling around in my mind. I don't know how to fix the problem, if I don't know the source of it.
There will be more rants later. If anyone has comments or ideas, let me know! I would love to hear everyone's imput!
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