Newsrooms may change, but will never disappear

Newsrooms may change, but will never disappear

By: Rachel Bunn
Edited by: Becky Taylor

The newsroom is changing with the addition of new practices, and most believe although the newsroom will never be obsolete journalists will have to develop more skills.


Most newspapers are now using new technology, Web sites and social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, to break news.

Traditional print media is being thrust into the 21st century, and the newsroom is changing the way it operates, one small step at a time.

“People are so impatient. They want the news and they want it right now, or 10 seconds ago,” said Al Summers, news editor at the Times-Courier, a weekly paper in Ellijay, Ga.

Summers said the integration of computers in the newsroom allows writers to generate more and better stories because they have access to more resources.

Writers now only have to type a single word into Google or another search engine to produce hundreds of Web sites containing millions of facts.

Pete McCommons, editor and publisher at Flagpole Magazine in Athens, Ga., disagrees with Summers.

He says computers are important and have aided in the general production of the paper, but do not have a significant impact on the development of news.

“Speed and ease of publication have increased. You still have to develop the idea,” said McCommons.

Computers are changing the types of jobs in newsrooms.

Emily Baldwin, former writer and editor for The Citizen Newspaper in Fayetteville, Ga., became the first web editor when The Citizen launched its Web site, www.thecitizennews.com, in 2005.

Although some jobs are being created, many traditional jobs are being let go. Baldwin was given the responsibilities of editor for the Life and Style section as well as being Web editor of The Citizen.

A recent Los Angeles Times article pointed to job reductions as the only way many papers are staying afloat.

As journalism students prepare to graduate in this changing environment, what lies ahead?

Marc McAfee, columnist for The Red and Black at the University of Georgia, believes students will no longer be defined to roles such as reporter, photographer or editor—journalists will have to be able to do everything.

“Everything is going into one narrow channel,” said McAfee.

Summers agrees that the more you are able to do, the better chance you have at getting a job.

“The more skills you have coming in, the more marketable you are,” he said.

With the rise of new media and “jack-of-all-trade” journalists, what will happen to newsrooms?

Baldwin believes that the community and the knowledge of peers is too valuable to abandon the newsroom. McCommons has a different take.

“It is entirely possible that publications will resort to the model of using mostly freelance writers, as Flagpole does now, but with those writers submitting their copy to an editor before it is published online,” said McCommons.

Summers and McAfee agree that publications need a cohesiveness that cannot be found without editors and newsrooms’ existence.

“Editors are still important,” said Summers.

The future of newspapers is less clear. Will they disappear in the physical form? Summers does not think so.

Summers believes that for local news, people will always want something they can hold or display.

Baldwin does not agree that physical papers will continue into the future, but believes that change will come gradually.

“It’s a slow evolution for papers.”

She says the baby boom generation still desire to have a physical newspaper, but dependence and love of the Internet by the younger generation will eventually drive papers out of print.

“You have to try to capture the next generation of people, what they want. At the end of the day, it’s a business.”