Page 164 - Convergent Journalism an Introduction Writing and Producing Across Media

MULTIMEDIA JOURNALISM: PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

and serve the story in whatever platform. I think the biggest challenge
is moving print people from production-line thinking to collaborative
thinking in terms of creating news stories” (2004).
Professor Bob Papper of Ball State University has long been an
advocate for convergence. He created and teaches some of the first con-
vergent journalism courses in the country. He believes the multi-skilled
journalist has a future, but he’s just not sure how many will be needed.
Papper noted that from a business standpoint, multimedia reporters
were attractive because they could do many jobs. “From a realistic
standpoint the more skills a person has, the less likely they are to be
able to produce quality in all or any one area,” he said. “The more skills
a journalist has to use, the less time they can put into any one of those
things.” Papper said a role exists for a person who can do everything.
These individuals might find more opportunities in smaller markets,
where resources are scarce. “If you’re hiring a bunch of people, you’re
probably going to get more quality and efficiency out of specialization,
especially in a large market. In small markets this kind of journalism
may work” (2004).
154 Martha Stone (2002), training director for the Newsplex, believes
the model of the “do-it-all” journalist offers too many problems. “While
some multimedia journalists can handle a variety of tasks efficiently and
professionally, most will only deliver mediocre journalism,” she said.
“While some may excel at writing the story for print or broadcast,
they may produce poor-quality video or still pictures.” Stone believes
that specialization, where people concentrated on one form of report-
ing, has stood the test of time: “Quality comes from those journalists
who practice a defined job, be it writer, videographer, photographer
or editor,” she said. Kerry Northrup, who helped establish the News-
plex at the University of South Carolina, noted that the multimedia
role tended to be the most controversial at newspapers. “For the aver-
age journalist it means more work and they won’t pay me any extra,”
he said. However, an increasing number of journalists were adopting
this model, he said, and these people sometimes demanded premium
salaries. “It is unfeasible to expect that everyone will do this,” he said.
“People have strengths. There will be multi-faceted journalists, but a
lot of people will be specialists.” But all journalists needed to under-
stand the relative strengths and weaknesses of the various media, and
the various technologies that permitted newsgathering and distribution
over all four points of what he called the convergence compass—print,
video, online, and mobile. “You have to be multiple-media minded,”