| Sign in: |
| Members log in here with your user name and password to access the your admin page and other special features. |
|
|
|
|
|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
High School students are the future. . .
Jeff Jones, Photo Editor
 |
Gallup | NM | USA | Posted: 10:06 PM on 06.03.09 |
->> After one year off from newspaper shooting and working as an English teacher my principal has tasked me with creating a journalism program for next school year. Digital media class and yearbook are both okay, but what would you tell a high school student in a reporting class when they start to express an interest in pursuing journalism as a career?
I know how I feel, but am wondering what others think or have done in this situation.
I just realized - my contract ended today and I am already worrying about the next year. So much for summer vacation . . . |
|
Erik Markov, Photographer
|
Kokomo | IN | | Posted: 10:45 PM on 06.03.09 |
->> Jeff,
This is strictly speaking as someone who's been working for newspapers for 12 years. I have no experience in transitioning from one career to another, as you have, many others do in the past couple years of finding something after newspapers. Take it all with a grain a salt.
I would tell them your own personal experience to start with if you're comfortable with that. It might help them understand just how you've had to manage things. That sort of flexibility in one's journalism career is going to be increasingly important in the future. I don't think I would tell them never to go into journalism. Newspapers as we know it may disappear but journalism is always going to be needed.
Being creative and flexible in a career is important for any profession, but particularly journalism, most definitely for photographers. With the amount of technology that is getting thrown at photogs, I don't think it's possible to keep up on everything and be competent in it, but that doesn't mean one can't read about it, play around with it on the fringes.
I haven't gotten a chance to play with video yet. But I've been doing soundslides for a few years, along with the audio. That's led me to be interested in doing time lapse movies, which has gotten me into playing with basic video programs, Premiere Elements. I've gotten pretty comfortable with recording the audio, and the soundslides transitioning to time lapses has me looking at shooting differently. I look at scenes more now than just a single image. Analyze the scene, see how one image fits with another etc.
I think what it all comes down to is the flexibility. New technology, new ideas. What can be done that is unique and different with an emerging technology. Cause the student could be a still photojournalist on Monday, shooting some video on Tuesday, doing a little writing on Thursday, maybe some consulting on Friday.
The most important thing students could learn early on I think is how to be creative in the face of adversity. There are going to be people who don't understand what they're trying to do, try and dissuade them from trying something new. And two of the books that they need to read early on are The Great Picture Hunt 2 and Photosynthesis. They make a great foundation to start a career on if they choose to go that way. |
|
Samuel Lewis, Photographer
|
Miami | FL | USA | Posted: 11:16 PM on 06.03.09 |
->> You need to consider what an appropriate pedagogical approach is, and then attempt to convey that message. As a teacher, your objective should be to foster and encourage your students' creativity and imagination, not to dash their hopes and dreams before they've had a chance to fulfill them.
If your students are interested in pursuing journalism as a career, give them the advice that may help them in that pursuit. Encourage the students to study other journalists while trying to develop their own style. Encourage students to learn as much history, geography, and foreign languages as possible, in order to develop a deeper and more meaningful understanding of the stories they may be called upon to report in the future (and which might give them something of an advantage).
Above all, you need to be careful to prevent your own bias from discouraging those would-be journalists from pursuing their passions. It is far too easy, once you've been in any profession for any length of time, to become jaded and even pessimistic about that profession. Whatever your own feelings about the future of the profession, you need to be careful to keep any negative feelings in check. There's nothing wrong with conveying the message that succeeding in journalism--like any profession--requires a tremendous amount of hard work, passion, talent and even a bit of luck. If your students truly have a passion for journalism, they will find a way to make it work when they finally get into the real world. |
|
Darren Whitley, Photographer
|
Maryville | MO | USA | Posted: 11:18 PM on 06.03.09 |
| ->> Ask them what their interests are outside of journalism. Then tell them to develop expertise not just in journalism, but their outside interests and the two should come together into something worthwhile. |
|
Jeff Jones, Photo Editor
|
Gallup | NM | USA | Posted: 12:33 PM on 06.09.09 |
->> In the past my advice to would be photojournalists was do something else - unless there is nothing else you can do. That may sound pessimistic at first, but let me expand. No matter what you choose to do in life, it should be the one thing you have such passion about there is nothing else for you but to pursue it. Some people choose sports, some music, some people like the thrill of closing the deal. Just make certain it is the only thing in your life that you care about pursuing.
As I said, I know my own opinions - encourage students to learn as many different skills as they can. Journalism is constantly evolving and at this point there is no magic formula for what skills and methods are going to ensure success. |
|
Chuck Liddy, Photographer
|
Durham | NC | USA | Posted: 1:10 AM on 06.10.09 |
| ->> ...ask them if they want to be able to buy groceries.....pay their mortgage.....car payments.....passion is one thing, paying the bills is a whole other subject. In this day and age of cutbacks, the wholesale slash and burn policy of ALL newspapers I think anyone who encourages young people to get in the business is doing them a great disservice. This might come off as fatalistic but let's all be truthful here, jobs are non-existent and shrinking everyday. There are more than enough eager young faces being shoved out of the various journalism schools every year, and where are they going? I guess some are getting jobs, but not many in the field they chose. I think it's fine to encourage young people to look at our business, but I also am very sure we need to explain to them they can have all the passion and skill in the world but it may not matter in the end.....there just aren't any jobs out there. it's not fair to lead folks up a path that has no future. |
|
Dave Prelosky, Photographer
|
Lower Burrell | Pa | US | Posted: 1:47 AM on 06.10.09 |
->> Chuck,
As much as I usually agree with your POV, I'd suggest that journalism will be around long after news-on-trees is mentioned only in history Kindles.
Let's not discourage the dissemination of information by professionals, lest we reduce "The News" to a stream of 140 character messages from my 15 year old daughter. |
|
Jim Colburn, Photo Editor, Photographer
|
McAllen | TX | USA | Posted: 4:28 AM on 06.10.09 |
->> "...what would you tell a high school student in a reporting class when they start to express an interest in pursuing journalism as a career?"
The truth. Tell them that the biz has gone to hell in a hand basket and that the chance of finding a staff job with decent pay is rapidly approaching zero. |
|
Wally Nell, Photographer
 |
CAIRO | EG | EGYPT | Posted: 5:37 AM on 06.10.09 |
| ->> I agree with Chuck and Jim; if after they have heard that, they still want to continue, then perhaps they will make it. Unfortunately thick skin is one of the requirements of making it in this business. If they have heard the truth and still choose to pursue it, then great; but don't keep the truth from them. Give them the whole picture. |
|
Chuck Liddy, Photographer
|
Durham | NC | USA | Posted: 8:24 AM on 06.10.09 |
| ->> Dave, I just wanted to clarify. I think there will always be a need for talented journalists. If you want proof check out our series this week at newsobserver.com where our IR team has uncovered corruption that resulted in the resignation of a college chancellor, provost, trustee and the firing of the former first lady of the state, soon to follow, federal indictments against the former governor? I don't see "citizen journalists" ever doing something like that. My point is (and has been for several years) don't mislead these kids. Tell them the truth (which isn't really being done according to what I've heard from tons of pj school students) sure there will be journalism but probably not the kind many of us are practicing now. That's all I was saying. I mean really, has anyone seen a job posting LOOKING for a staff photographer in the last six months? |
|
Return to --> Message Board Main Index
|