Assignment #4: The State of the News Industry
The industry continues to shake up. On Monday, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer announced its last print edition will roll off the presses the following day as the company shifts to an online news model. Most of the 167 employees will lose their jobs.
More than 14,000 news professionals lost their jobs in 2008 and those numbers are expected to be dwarfed by the number released in 2009.
Several prominent cultural writers from outside our industry written about these events. Perhaps most widely discussed was Clay Shirky's blog post, "Newspapers and the Thinking the Unthinkable." Another contribution was Stephen Johnson's speech at South By Southwest on March 13, titled "Old Growth Media and the Future of News."
Your assignment is to read both of these lengthy contributions and respond from a journalism student perspective. Although I expect some of you will express misgivings about your marketability, that perspective will be less interesting than your thoughts about what these changes mean and perhaps why you think they're happening.
No minimum (or maximum) word length. I just want to know you've engaged these texts and brought your own thoughts to bear.
How will I grade these?
Students often ask about my grading criteria for blogs. To put it simply, I value the following areas:
- Basics - spelling, grammar, subject-verb agreement
- Content - Is your position or argument concise? Did you close in a strong fashion?
- Style - Good use of links, appropriate paragraph breaks, active voice, personal and external voices both used
- Creativity - creative use of multimedia or other content
To get a positive grade, you do not need to achieve perfection in all four of these areas. However, you should be strong in at least three.
Due Friday, March 20.
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