The Future of Journalism

I had a conversation with a professor after class today. It went something like this:

"A bunch of my freshman advisees want to change majors."
"To what?"
"Television-Radio, Cinema & Photography, anything other than journalism."
"Why?"
"They feel there's no future in journalism, that there aren't any jobs out there."

At this point, I brought up independent media and how that sector of journalism is expanding by the minute, providing countless job opportunities. We discussed that journalism classes may need to be revamped to focus more on new rather than old models of journalism, but that the field itself is far from dying.

In her speech today on campus, Arianna Huffington echoed similar sentiments. "I believe in a hybrid future," she said. Huffington went on to say that we are in a "golden age" of journalism where we can combine the best tenets of traditional journalism such as accuracy and fact-checking with the best tenets of new, online journalism: transparency, immediacy, and many voices.

Online media, Huffington said, often steps in to fill the void left by mainstream media who choose to spend their time covering trivial stories like Balloon Boy and "the latest missing blonde."

"The mainstream media missed the two biggest stories of our time," she said. "The lead-up to the war in Iraq and the economic meltdown."

She spoke about the importance of citizen journalists, especially during the elections in Iran and the Chinese uprisings this past summer. Iranian citizens recorded election happenings via blogs, tweets, and camera phones, showing the world what was really happening. When riots broke out in China shortly after, the Chinese government blocked the internet to prevent citizen journalism from occurring. Instead, Chinese officials invited professional journalists to cover the event.

"They were acknowledging it's much easier to spin real-life journalists than thousands of tweets," she said, and then provided historical examples of how professional journalists have been spun in the past.

A huge asset of online, independent media is its open sourcing, where anyone can contribute. Huffington concluded her speech by challenging the audience to embrace this opportunity and improve the quality of journalism today, with or without a journalism degree:"Instead of waiting for knights on white horses to save us, we can look in the mirror and see the leadership we have in ourselves to have an impact."

Josh Marshall, Glen Greenwald, and Arianna Huffington have already made their impact. What will yours be?