The Fall of Journalism

Back in 1994, I received one of the last minors in journalism for someone receiving a Bachelor of Science in Education at Central Michigan University. I taught journalism for five years, but have continued to use the skills developed at CMU.

Journalism–style writing is different from "normal" writing. The focus is more on being concise. That's what I learned more than anything in journalism classes. The skills I developed after j–school (as they're called) were more layout and design. I still try to stick to the writing skills from journalism, but it sometimes leads to disagreements. For example, journalism requires the spelling of "adviser" but standard English is "advisor" — think about a class adviser (for those of you I confused!)

Anyway, newspapers are closing every day. The two major Detroit papers (after years of publishing jointly) publish editions only on certain days of the week. Journalists are taking more of an approach that it's okay to be published on the Internet. Some even tweat, and others blog. A few years ago, "professional journalists" lambasted bloggers as "amateurs." But, when an amateur can break the news quicker ... (I digress)

Times change. Technologies change. Lives change. And journalism is changing.

Read what Malcolm Gladwell has to say about it.