The New York University scholar, Jay Rosen, has been at the vanguard of digital journalism, so it's a treat to hear his advice for the next generation of creators. He gave an opening-day address to students in Paris and has since summarized his remarks.
Yes, Rosen touches the bases all journalism instructors now do: you should blog, know SEO and HTML5, understand the audience, get feisty about mobile and know how to record and edit audio and video.
But Rosen's best advice --- in his view and in mine --- comes in what else he says students pursuing journalism ought to watch as the power shifts away from journalists to the people who consume and share content:
1. The need to replace audience terms like readers, viewers and listeners with "users."
2. The need to understand users know more than you do.
3. The qualities the audience brings are of mutual importance to the work of journalists.
4. Describe the world in a way people can participate in it.
5. Just because everyone can participate doesn't mean everyone will.
6. A journalists is simply a heightened case of an informed citizen.
7. Your authority has to do with being some place to tell people about.
8. You need to listen to demand and give people what they have no way to demand.
9. Trust means telling people where you're coming from.
10. Newspapers make associations and associations make newspapers. This is a saying from De Tocqueville, but one Rosen says remains germane.
Yes, Rosen touches the bases all journalism instructors now do: you should blog, know SEO and HTML5, understand the audience, get feisty about mobile and know how to record and edit audio and video.
But Rosen's best advice --- in his view and in mine --- comes in what else he says students pursuing journalism ought to watch as the power shifts away from journalists to the people who consume and share content:
1. The need to replace audience terms like readers, viewers and listeners with "users."
2. The need to understand users know more than you do.
3. The qualities the audience brings are of mutual importance to the work of journalists.
4. Describe the world in a way people can participate in it.
5. Just because everyone can participate doesn't mean everyone will.
6. A journalists is simply a heightened case of an informed citizen.
7. Your authority has to do with being some place to tell people about.
8. You need to listen to demand and give people what they have no way to demand.
9. Trust means telling people where you're coming from.
10. Newspapers make associations and associations make newspapers. This is a saying from De Tocqueville, but one Rosen says remains germane.
