Why Am I Doing This Topic?
Posted by Sheila Conlin
Hooray for my capstone advisor for pushing me beyond my comfort zone. It truly is one of the best ways we learn and grow.
(Intellectually I know this - it's the implementation that is harder to come by if left to my own devices.)
I have been working on my skills to improve the layout of this blog for the past 5 days. And have been struggling with importing templates that end up having holes in the middle of them (and my limited skills prevent me from fixing them.) So I try a third and fourth template. And decide maybe the ones blogger supplies can be customized - just fine. I am struggling to create a look that is mine and mine alone. If you are reading this - you have seen my latest look. Please let me know what you think of it.
But the title to this blog is not referring to templates and colors and graphics. It's the topic that I've chosen for my final project as a graduate student in journalism at Georgetown. Why this one?
I am honored to be getting a degree from such a wonderful institution of higher learning. At the same time I feel obligated to come up with a research project that might help some of the people who want to work in the field I've enjoyed for more than 30 years. Journalism is a highly addictive way to make a living. But the industry is changing and there are fewer and fewer slots for the kind of journalism I do now or use to do when I worked in local TV newsrooms.
Statistics like this from the Pew report on the State of the News Media in 2010 - do not paint a pretty picture for TV news reporters in the future.
"Almost all the indicators for local TV are pointing down. Audiences continue to fall for newscasts across all timeslots. Revenue, too, was in a free fall. Looking ahead, most market analysts project revenues to grow only slightly, but that is hardly taken as good news given that it is a year that includes both the midterm elections and winter Olympic Games. Stations may be nearing a point where they can no longer add new newscasts or new revenue opportunities, such as sponsored segments, to their old ones."
All three of the people I'm profiling in this project use to WORK in local TV newsrooms. I worked with two of them IN local newsrooms. And thought all of them to be very brave to try a new venture in the unproven world of online news.
As I mentioned in an earlier blog, the Pew report reminds that there IS no model for making money in online news operations. But all of them have bills to pay - and families to feed. So they must be doing SOMETHING to make a living. Perhaps there is something we all can learn by looking at what they are trying to do.
I had a rough stretch where I lost my job after about 12 months of work - four years in a row. It was more than 10 years ago. But that feeling of being abandoned is always in the back of your mind. I read about people in local newsrooms who are encouraged to retire early or pick up a camera and do 2 or 3 jobs for less money then they had been making as a reporter and I think maybe this project could help them. I think of some of the students in my program who are 20-somethings or 30-somethings and I think - maybe they can benefit too.
Much of my research will be in written form. But since I've been producing stories with pictures and sound for decades, I feel as though some of my storytelling will have to be video stories.
Please share any stories you have along this line with me.
And stay tuned.
