Ten years ago, who would have thought that the most-prized skills for today’s journalists would be the ability to crunch numbers, analyze data, and deliver information in a visually literate manner.
Data journalism is now on the leading edge of the field with further avenues of development like virtual reality, 360-degree video, and live social media streaming posing their own challenges for tomorrow’s data-focused content creators.
Helena Pozniak explores the evolving boundaries of journalism in this report from The Guardian:
“The media industry is evolving at an unparalleled rate,” says Simon Hinde, programme director of journalism and publishing at the London College of Communication, where programmes have changed dramatically in the past five years. “Courses are fully multimedia – we publish web first, there’s a much greater focus on the innovative use of social media and we’ve introduced data journalism.”
Knowing how to get to a story via data and freedom of information requests is one of the most prized skills, says Paul Bradshaw, who heads up the master’s courses in data journalism and multiplatform and mobile journalism at Birmingham City University. “We struggle to meet demand from employers wanting students who can analyse data. All news organisations are expanding in this area.”
But journalism students have tended to think conservatively, he says. Magazine courses were traditionally oversubscribed, while data journalism has attracted fewer applicants at popular UK universities. “Intellectually, students understand the need for these skills, but they think they will be the exception who gets to write beautiful flowing features for magazines, and never has to deal with spreadsheets.”
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Knowing how to make a story stand out amid millions of others is more important than ever, given the sheer bulk of online content. “As people scan and scroll, you now have even less time to capture their attention,” says Ed Preedy, managing director at GumGum, which uses image recognition technology to reach targeted audiences. “Images are a powerful way to communicate complex things. For journalists, this technology is there to be embraced.”
