I think that the basic skills that journalist have naturally, like good writing skills, the ability to go out and get the news and ethics, just to name a few, are very important to have and should always be a top trait that a journalist should have whether they are writing online or for print. Now with journalism moving forward to online and other forms of media, journalist are having to acquire more skills and the gain the ability to use them. The traits that were named in the article were, to be entrepreneurial and business savy, to be a programmer, be an open-minded experimenter, be a media story teller, be a community builder, to blog, be multi-skilled and have the fundamentals to be a journalist which I named earlier. These traits are required to be successful these days to be a journalist. I think just a good knowledge of the internet and how to use different applications and knowing where and how to find things and use it via the internet is also a good trait to have. I think that the most important trait to have out of the eight that were named is to be multi-skilled. You should know how to set up a blog website and use it, edit videos, write good stories etc. There are a ton of other traits that could be added to this list, but the eight that were named are just some of the most important.

I have recently read an article written by Dave Winer on his thoughts about the future of journalism. He feels as though journalism, today, is a new beginning for young ambitious people to take off with journalism and invent new ideas. Obviously, there are already print newspapers, magazines, online news, but now the i-phone and i-pad. Anyone can publish anything they want no matter where they are at. This is just the beginning of journalism- bigger and better things are in the making. I think that although this is great and he is teaching students this new way of publishing, there needs to be more in the making because in a few years, the i-pad will be old news and there will be something better. The i-phone has been out for years now and is already becoming something of the past. There will need to be new classes to be taught at universities. I am in a journalism class this semester that focuses just on writing for print newspapers. I don’t think that newspapers and magazines will ever be rid of anytime soon, but when the next generation comes around and our kid’s kids are getting the news, they wont be reliant on print news. It will be strictly electronic and print papers will be a thing of the past.

http://garrreynolds.com/Design/whydesign.html

I have recently read an article about why design matters at the website listed above. He gives reasons why design is so powerful in our world. When it comes down to accountants, retailers, doctors teachers etc., they are all designers in their field in some way or another. He says that design is strategic and quality alone is not enough. I completely agree with this article because design is a part of the products and the overall company. It is a very big part in our world, it should have an impact on people’s lives. As Tom Peter says in one of his books in his series, BrandYou50, “You do not need to be a designer-you do need to become more design sensitive or design mindful in this century.”

I have recently read a blog from a journalism student at NYU at, http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2008/09/embedded_at_nyuold_thinking_pe.html. She is a journalism major with a minor in history. She is taking a class at NYU that it titled “Reporting Gen Y,” she says it focuses on new media, but is concerned about how non advanced most of her class is when it comes to new media. She finds it suprising that she is the only student in a class of 16 students that has a blog, along many other webistes she uses for more professional writing. She is also not very comfortable with the fact that her teacher is teaching the students about their own culture. Shes states that in her experience, the baby boomers often think our generation doesn’t know how to socialize face-to-face because of all of the new technology, but in her defense she states, our generation spend more time interacting with other than the previous generation who did not have as many forms of communication. Alana, the writer of this blog, is also very frustrated of having to bring a hard copy of the New York Times to class every week. She wants the teacher to have a broader outlook on the use of the internet and doesn’t understand why the students can’t access the New York Times via the internet. In summary, Alana just wants to learn how to become more aware than she already is about the internet and how to access it more efficiently.

After reading Alana’s blog post about her concern for the class, I find myself agreeing with her throughout the post. Being in the journalism department as well, I can’t help but notice that most of the courses are focused on old-school writing and accessing news. Having hard copies of newspapers and magazines can be just as beneficial as any other way of getting the news, its just that our technology in the world is growing by the minute. You can gain an unbelivable amount of information via the internet and it is easier to access sometimes. Courses on college campuses should have more of an open mind towards the use of the internet and using it just as much as they use hard copies of news. Our jobs in the future will most likely have everything to do with online journalism. Hopefully courses will be provided to teach this and students will gain what is really needed to be productive and profitable.