I’m very excited that this post will also appear in a new journalism blog ring for young journalists 30 and under.
I only wish I had more time to dedicate towards this question – because it’s a doozy. But here are my thoughts (posted on my personal blog as well) on “The biggest challenge facing a young journalist in todayâ??s media isâ?¦”
Young journalists have a unique set of challenges: Defining what journalism looks like on the web, figuring out how to make money doing it, understanding our new role not as gatekeeper but as curator, etc, etc.
But the biggest challenge (and the reason why I’m excited about this blog ring and also twentysomethingjournalist.com) is that we need to collectively figure out where we, as a diaspora, will live.
This notion of the diaspora is not my own – I have to give credit to “Boss Rosen” who talked about this at PDF earlier this year. Perhaps it is a little dramatic to use the word “diaspora,” but we young journalists will not have safe harbors in newsrooms supported by advertising. We have been born into a nomadic lifestyle and it is up to us to find new ground to settle on.
I put emphasis on the word “collective” because it is not enough for one or two of us to figure it out. I would be happy and proud of any individuals who make a career as a freelancer (in fact, my own startup relies on the notion that individuals can make a name for themselves as freelancers), but individuals acting as independent contractors don’t make the 4th estate. It must be more than that.
And so our biggest challenge is finding each other despite the crumbling of our institutional structure.
Do I have answers? No. But that’s why it’s a challenge. It will require some serious tweaking and innovative thinking – because we are not able to go back to our shelter in the newsroom of old. There will be no water coolers for us to mingle, talk about being a journalist and find solice in the idea that we are part of something greater than the mere summation of our writing.
We must forge ahead to find a new land where we can all survive together and work together to ensure that the 4th estate and all that it represents continues.