Journalism students seeking employment at online media companies are in fact more likely to find a job at a mainstream print news organisation than their peers who desire only a traditional career, says Joanna Geary, web development editor for the Times.
Speaking on Tuesday at a panel hosted by City University’s School of Journalism in London, Joanna Geary said that the Times likes to ‘keep tabs on’ journalism students heavily engaged in new and social media.
Of the approximately 70 journalism students in the audience at the panel discussion, only 18 were actively interested in employment at new media companies or start-ups.
“I expected it would be those 18 that would be employed by mainstream media organisations. I guess, for me, the skills priority for journalists has changed,” Geary wrote on her blog afterwards.
Geary also said, by tweet, that students interested in new media ‘will have the outlook, attitude, and skills that MSM [mainstream media] now needs’.
The panel included the Northern Echo editor, Peter Barron; former Press Gazette deputy editor Jon Slattery; Journalism.co.uk reporter Judith Townend, and paidContent reporter Patrick Smith. The debate was moderated by the Guardian’s media blogger and City journalism professor Roy Greenslade.
City University journalism student Heather Christie blogs at TweetBeat, can be found on Twitter via @heatherchristie and is the business manager and an editor of www.thefirstpint.co.uk.
Speaker Q&A: Jessica Reed, Guardian.co.uk’s Comment is Free