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Chances are you’ve already heard or read that journalism is dead.

Newspapers are going down the toilet, print is dying and journalists are losing their jobs.

Well, despite any numbers about the business of journalism, I happen to sincerely disagree with the statement that journalism is dead.

Journalism is changing, and of course, with its change will come a change in the business behind the journalism industry.

If people aren’t buying newspapers anymore, advertisers need to look into online ads. If consumers are getting information from sites like Twitter or Facebook, news sources need to connect their names to Twitter accounts. The same is true for the business that keeps new sources running.

The business needs to adjust and that adaptation is beginning now.

The Online Journalism Blog has an interesting blog about how media business models need to change. In its change, the blog highlights three main ideas: (1) readers are worth less (or in other words, advertising is cheaper), (2) content is free and (3) the realization that you don’t own the platform.

The biggest change in the journalism industry right now is that journalism is becoming a conversation. 10,000words.net blogger Mark S. Luckie constantly includes this idea in his thoughts.

Citizen journalism can help “real journalists” tell stronger stories with more accurate information.

I’m not getting a degree in journalism, and I don’t know much about business. But I do know that the bigwigs who run news outlets need to recognize the change happening now and adjust.

It’s a strange beast.

Journalism evokes a wide range of emotions from people who know the profession and people who simply read about it. It’s been described as wonderful, evil, biased, unprofessional, intelligent, lazy, yellow and an assortment of other adjectives.

The bottom line is that journalism has been there from the beginning. It started as word of mouth and storytelling. It transformed into leaflets and tablets in later years, progressing to newspapers, magazines and electronic media at its present stage.

But at its base, what is journalism?

Is it the process of taking events and transcribing them into stories people who don’t care may still want to read? Is it the attempt to make money from stories people can now read for free online? Is it an attempt to sway the general public to believe what’s best for them is what you say it is?

No. Journalism is simply information.

The industry as we know it is struggling. Life is getting busier every day and people are pretending they don’t have time to read anymore (although they watch three hours of the same episode of SportsCenter). The economy is struggling so people are cutting back on things they think they don’t need. They cut back on things to save time. We are slowly become a world of headline-readers. Very few people have or take the time to get the whole story.
As a result, our society is becoming more and more blind to the real issues in the world. People are turning a desensitized eye to important issues abroad and at home. It’s slowly become a world more concerned with celebrity and reality television than nuclear threats or impending wars. Even in the current state, journalists, the few who are left and still enjoy their jobs, are getting a bad wrap. People are becoming more critical of what they read and more harsh in their responses. Check out the comments toward Jason Wren’s dad to get an understanding of this idea.

Maybe people need to be more critical of themselves first.

Journalism is simply information. It is transference of relevant detail from one entity to the next. It is important to all parties that become involved in the process and it pushed our lives forward into tomorrow.

The profession as we know it may be dying, but information will always be around.

And while it is, the world will still need journalism.

I have a unique vantage point from which to view the transitions facing our industry. This semester I’ve worked as a graduate research assistant for Knight Chair in News, Leadership and Community, Pam Fine. This spring we conducted a time-use study with some of the top newspaper
editors in the country.

The goal is to gain a better understanding of
how these editors budget their time. Data is still coming in, but an incidental finding appears to
be that many participants are spending increasing amounts of time
dealing with organizational change–things like restructuring, finances, new technology, and staff training–and less time focusing on the
production of news.

It certainly is an interesting time to conduct such a study: furloughs, layoffs, buyouts, belly-up. 
 
How are newspapers to survive? Two words: horizontal integration.
 
In order to survive, newspapers must recast themselves not as print outlets, but as media outlets. The method(s) by which a news outlet chooses to disseminate information becomes a strategic business decision, based on the needs of the target audience. Not just print, broadcast or online, a true multi-platform approach to provide readers information on their terms–in their preferred media formats.

It’s an even more interesting time to be fresh out of college, looking to land that first job as a journalist. So, moving forward, what skills are required to be a successful journalist?

I interviewed CNN’s Political Director and Senior Executive Producer of Political Programming, Sam Feist, to get his take on what skills journalists need to be competitive in today’s media marketplace.

CNN’s Sam Feist on skills journalists need from Josh Patterson on Vimeo.

And for those who can’t adapt…

During my J500 Media and the Environment class  we learned a lot about urban farming.

We each were assigned a farmer to create a blog about and we also had to help on a podcast.

Talking with Ericka Wright about her farm, the Troostwood Youth Garden showed me that urban farming was all about adaptation. Her neighborhood has very little fresh food around and a lot of youth. She decided to start a garden in her own yard to feed her community and help educate the kids.

This is what journalism needs to do.

Adapt. Find new ways to present information. Become better at everything.

For a while I just considered myself a photographer. Then after working at the Kansan I considered myself a photojournalist. Now after learning about blogging, copy editing, video editing, dreamweaver, fireworks and podcasts I have the confidence to say that I am a journalist and I am proud.

I am the future of journalism. Adaptation and learning a little bit of everything

 There are some things that I am just willing to put a little
more cash towards. I buy local honey because I don’t support carbon footprint
that happens when honey is transported from the far corners of the world. I buy
my bread at Great Harvest because I know and I like the workers.  I buy the $2.19 can of organic tomato
sauce because it just plain tastes better than the 99 cent generic can.

In summary, I reach a little deeper into my pocket because
of my social convictions, because I know and trust the producers of certain
products and because of the quality of the expensive product is just better.
Those are three reasons that people should consider paying for great news
service like that of the New York Times.

Millions of readers tune in to the New York Times every day.
It is a trusted source that has only embraced the challenges of the advent of
technology by treating their readers to videos, photos, slideshows,
interactive graphics and audio. Currently, any reader with internet access
can view these treasures for free. But is that the best idea for the company?

In Romanescko’s last entry on
PoynterOnline, he suggested this unique
business model for the New York Times. He suggested that with just a $1 a month
(or 3.3 cents a day) contribution from its visitors, the Times could earn $240
million in new annual revenue. 

In this age of
struggling newspapers, Romanescko’s plan may be more than a business model
for the Times, it may be a lifeline.

So, in conclusion, I want to say–why not? Shouldn’t we be
willing to pay for the press that is the best of the best? I know that it’s
worth it to me. I’ll make the small sacrifice to enjoy the freedom of having a
press that I can trust.  If my 3.3
cents a day protects transmission of knowledge, and therefore democracy, than I
am game. 

In a week, I will walk down the hill as a graduate of the University of Kansas with a journalism degree.  I know I should be proud of my accomplishment, but lately I’ve been asking myself: How much is a journalism degree worth these days?

I was going to write a blog on the importance of convergence as we enter a new age of journalism. You know, that’s supposed to be the business of journalism these days. Breaking news. Post updates to the Web. Incorporate video into your story packages. Accomplish more work, yet do it all in the same number of hours as before you had all the work. Oh yeah, and for the same pay. Sometimes, even for less pay. And with fewer staffers. 

The dreaded day is approaching. I keep seeing the signs and the warnings. I want to ignore them, but I can’t. I only have 4 days left with my trial of Office 2008 for the mac.

The business of journalism is full of uncertainty and educational assumptions. No one really knows what is going to happen to journalism and the increasing number of journalists who are losing jobs. Society has seen several large newspapers completely go under, such as the Rocky Mountain News, the Baltimore Examiner and the Albuquerque Tribune. It’s a shame to see such great publications disappear. I personally will be disappointed when all newspapers stop printing and go completely online. I enjoy picking up a newspaper everyday, carrying it around with me and reading the news much more than I enjoy getting the news online. This is also where I bring up an argument I have already written about. What about the people who do not have computers, internet access, or even those that do but do not know how to use the technology? How do these people get their news? It is vital to small, traditional, rural towns that get its news from the published weekly newspaper to know what is going on in the community, nationally and internationally.

It seems to me the business of journalism is left in the hands of our current economic recession and current and future journalists. As much as the media and journalists may dislike it, the economy does play a large part in what journalism is and what it will become. If you look at the role the economy has already placed on journalism you can see a decline in publications of newspapers and an increase of journalists utilizing new medias like Twitter, Facebook and other online resources. While the evolvement of journalism is exciting and it seems everyone is ready to jump into using new technologies I would be sad to see the traditional medias disappear. No one knows what the future holds and what sort of new technologies and resources will develop and slowly overpower the traditional types of media that we know and use today. As a journalist I will embrace the “new” but never forget the “traditional” resources that made me the journalist I am
today.

For months, the Associated Press and Google have been debating about content and compensation. They want to be paid by news aggregators which post up headlines and blurbs from AP stories without permission. 

The AP is also accusing Google of committing copyright thievery when it borrows material from news stories to assemble search rankings. So basically the AP wants Google to create search protocols that direct users to original AP stories and away from secondary sources who borrow material from the AP. This would not threaten Google’s ability to search and link to newspaper sites that are AP members. What it affects is the ability of news.google.com to offer feeds of AP news. 

In an interview with Forbes on Wednesday, AP Chief Tom Curley warned that if Google doesn’t strike the right deal with AP soon, “They will not get our copy going forward.”

Okay, so this is a blog and here’s where my opinion comes in. The Huffington Post had a story on its website talking about this whole fiasco including Curley’s statement from Forbes. At the end of the article there were 78 comments including this one from an anonymous source.

“The AP is a rag..or it would be it weren’t a wire service. Look for Google to establish a competing service… amalgamating stringers is well within their capabilities, and their platform for dispensing information can’t be rivaled. Look for AP to file bankruptcy in five years… no, wait. Murdoch will buy them up at pennies on the dollar…AP fits in his portfolio.”

So I guess this guy and the other people commenting are basically saying down with the AP, who needs them? We can get our news from Perez Hilton for all we care. My coworker made a really good point. “AP is a not-for-profit, long-established and objective source of news. We want to throw that out for a corporate-owned news aggregator for a number of potentially bogus sources?” 

And I’m going to end with this personal note: To me Google is like my childhood bully. The bully who came up to me every day in elementary school and called me “gap-toothed hippie” and then threatened to beat me up. Except this bully didn’t make me broke.