While acknowledging that the traditional newspaper is rapidly vanishing, Desert Sun Executive Editor Greg Burton (left) told students Wednesday morning that "The core of this business will be the story. It was that way fifty years ago, and it will be that way 50 years from now."
Burton and Desert Sun digital reporter Brian Indrelunas (middle) were dialoguing with Matt Hamilton's journalism students about social media intersecting with traditional reporting and the opportunity and responsibility reporters hold in their hand.
"Our industry has really changed in the last decade," Burton said. "When I was a young reporter 10 or 15 years ago, we came into a news room and it wasn't wired like this," he said, pointing to banks of networked computers. "We sat down and talked about the news that was going on and set our timing for our deadlines for the monstrosity of a printing press out back. Everybody was focused on the getting the best story to put on the spools of paper that would be printed and delivered by the next morning at 6 a.m.
"Today, if you are waiting for that 6 a.m. paper on your doorstep to get your information, you're the last one to know what is going on."
Indrelunas is one example of a modern newsgatherer, spending some his time scouring Facebook and Twitter and other social media for trending stories.
"Instead of waiting for a 20-inch story to be written, processed, and edited 15 times, sometimes we only need a headline on our web site. And as we get details, we can keep expanding that story all day."
Burton called Inderlunas "the new model of what our industry has become."
The Desert Sun web site gets 200,000 hits daily.
No comments:
Post a Comment