Ever since the internet turned up to give newspapers a kicking, there’s been a constant stream of articles telling us where journalism is heading, what will become of news, what journalists should be doing or learning or saying, and how it’s all changing and if you don’t keep up, you’ll fall over and die. Yes die.
It often comes from people who don’t seem to quite get it. There’s a sense of panic in some – “oh god. Podcasts. Podcasts are the future. Someone get me eight podcasts.” And from the rest, we get smug advice. “Learn from me, young one. I write for the Guardian. I know all.”
I’m bored of it. I’m bored of the never-ending advice and navel-gazing from the journalist bigwigs. According to them, I’ve got to learn blogging, audio, video, and coding (seriously? Coding?) if I’m going to get jobs in the future. I’ve got to be a fully-rounded fully-trained sparkly snazzy multi-media journalist.
Please just shut up and let me get on with my job. So things are changing – so what? Things have always changed. Those who can cope will keep up, whether via thinking radically or through osmosis, slowly picking up on the things that are relevant.
If a story demands a blog post, I’ll write one. If it demands pictures I’ll find them. If it demands audio or video I’ll give that a try (I’ll be crap at it, but I’ll give it a go). I’ll get on Twitter and Reddit and learn how they can help me, and I’ll try and get my head around Google keywords.
It will take me a while to get totally up to speed with everything, because I’ve got a job to do at the same time as learning all this new stuff. But I’ll get there, and the tools will be all the more useful if I carefully think through how they’re going to help me and improve my work, rather than automatically doing something just because the endlessly resourced BBC did.
Most of the reporters I trained with have been learning and adapting since we started doing work experience ten years ago. I’m learning now from people younger than me, or from people who have never written an article in their lives. Anyone who ever stops changing isn’t a very good journalist.
And the people who have real trouble with what’s happening are the people who are already “successful” in the media. The older journalists, or legendary magazine publishers, who write sneering, boring articles about how Twitter is the source of all evil. They’re the ones who have never had to care before if thousands of people think their writing is abysmal and their attitude sucks. They don’t quite see how important it is when hundreds of those previously-ignored people rip their article to shreds in the comments section. They can’t get their head around the fact that just because they’re the professionals, doesn’t mean they always know best.
I know someone has to worry about how this industry is going to make money, but the way I see it, that’s up to the publishers. Let them stagger about, blinking at the internet like blind moles looking for a business model. If the businesses were half as adaptable and open to change as most of the journalists who write for them, we’d probably stop yammering about which direction we’re going in, and just do it.
My job is to adapt, without knee-jerk reactions, and that’s what I’ll aim to do. I’m certainly not going to breathlessly attempt to tick off all the different things we’re supposed to be doing, just for the sake of it. Stop telling me what it is I’ll be doing in ten years, what the new buzzword is – you don’t know. Nobody knows. Just let reporters and journalists get on with their jobs, with the tools that are available and suitable to them, and you’ll find we do ok.