“No Room for singled-skilled journalists”

The headline-quote is from a staff member of the Poynter Institute during a five-day workshop in St. Petersburg, Florida, October, 2008. It has, for me, a lot to say about the J-curriculum undergoing review in my department at Hunter. 

The following is a facsimile of an email I sent to the three students who received press credentials from New America Media to cover the Democratic National Convention in August, 2008. 

Since you are most likely the only ones working on any kind of serious “electronic media” portfolio on this campus, I am sending you this info even though I haven’t thoroughly checked about the portfolio requirements. Please notice that the RTNDA doesn’t “talk” anymore about broadcast per se. It use to be an organization known for  radio and television broadcasting.

It now talks about “electronic” media. I’m not sure when the switch came. Nevertheless, that means that courses like “Broadcast Journalism” are effete. That goes for basic reporting, advanced reporting, magazine writing and all of the other courses in this J-curriculum in F/M if they don’t heed the warnings.

Also, a Dow Jones rep, who said she was monitoring your work at the DNC, said Dow Jones is only interested in web stuff.

Check this out.

An internationally known member of the Poynter Institute, who once was a photographer at Newsday, said recently in a workshop: “No room for singe-skilled journalists.”

I’m sending Paula Wicklow a copy of this for the CDS because of the scholarship and contact information. Don’t waste your time posting on Hunter-L (and you can’t post on FM-L) but you can spread the word to your friends via other means.

I hope you guys are making sense of this.

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