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Digital DemandsMultimedia Journalism Changes What UniversitiesTeach‘Creating multimedia stories will require flexibility, a collaborative spirit, and strategicplanning,’ and these are essential skills that must now be learned.By Jerome AumenteJust as print and broadcast newsmedia are reinventing themselvesto fully embrace the Internet andnewer media, schools and departmentsof journalism and communication arerevamping their courses to acknowledgethe Web’s growing dominance,powers of interactivity, and the convergenceof print, broadcast and onlineenvironments. But how rapidly orradically the changes will happen aredifficult, unanswered questions for themedia and the universities.In a short time since the emergenceof the World Wide Web, the news media,especially newspapers, have significantlyaltered their attitude toward theInternet. After earlier bouts of arrogantskepticism, anger and denial, the traditionalmass media now concede theseismic transformations of the newermedia are irreversible. Google, with amarket value of $144 billion from itsInternet-based businesses, commandsattention from a newspaper industryworth $55 billion in the United Statesand experiencing steady meltdown incirculation and advertising revenue.Tom Curley, president and CEO ofThe Associated Press and a championof online journalism, told me that whilesome in the newspaper industry still are“trapped in the ‘word world’ and needto go 10,000 feet higher into the multimediaworld,” most have acceptedthe transition to online journalism.Internet users number more than onebillion worldwide, and many eagerlyparticipate in the interactive exchangeas news-as-lecture gives way to thenews-as-conversation. None of this islost on the 458 universities and collegesin the United States and Puerto Ricofrom which 48,750 students graduatedin 2005 with bachelor’s degrees inThough change cancome slowly in theconservative, consensusdrivenand budgetstrappedhalls of higherlearning, it is underway.journalism and mass communication(and 3,500 with master’s degrees), accordingto a survey by Professor Lee B.Becker at the University of Georgia. 1Paradigmatic shifts in informationexchange are causing universities torevise their course offerings, internshipsand applied research priorities.Though change can come slowly in theconservative, consensus-driven andbudget-strapped halls of higher learning,it is underway. My experiencesrelated to founding and directing ajournalism department and journalismresources institute and then in helpingdesign an interdisciplinary communicationschool at Rutgers, the StateUniversity of New Jersey, reminds meof challenges involved in keeping pacewith rapid and significant technologicalchanges.Aligning Lessons WithNewsroom ChangesLast year, I interviewed editors andpublishers from all the daily newspapersserving New Jersey and manyof the weekly community chains. Myinquiries were made for a book I publishedin 2007, “From Ink on Paper tothe Internet: Past Challenges and FutureTransformations for New Jersey’sNewspapers,” when the New JerseyPress Association (NJPA) celebratedits 150th anniversary as the oldestcontinually operating press associationin the nation. NJPA supported myresearch.With these editors and publishers, Idiscussed two topics in particular:• What they regard as the fate ofnewspapers 10 and 30 years fromnow and why.• How universities can better educatefuture journalists or train existingnewspaper staff.I’ve written extensively about newermedia, including a book on electronicpublishing in the embryonic days of1Becker’s 2005 survey also found that eight of 10 graduates believe people will getmost of their news via the Internet in 20 years. Most of them already get most of theirnews from the Internet. The median salary of entry-level, Web-related journalism jobswas $32,000 entry salary compared with $28,000 for daily newspapers, $23,000 for TV,or $26,000 for radio.Nieman Reports / Fall 2007 85