The Triumph of Technology

Or, Journalism in the Age of Now

From Sputnik (me) to Facebook (you)
 JRNL80
• This is the last class day of JRNL 80/10. We
have gathered approximately 35 times since
January to study online journalism and tools.
JRNL80 Calendar
 JRNL80 in 2015
• Let’s start this discussion by looking forward.
In 5 years, I wonder what this course will look
like at Hofstra and who will be teaching it?
 Careers
• In five years, most of you here today will be
into starting your careers. Life, my students,
goes really quickly after that.

• Why Does Time Fly By As You Get Older?

• Spoiler alert:
The novelty wears out. Keep the fire lit.
 The High School Class of 2015
• Today’s 13-year-olds are texting and sharing on
social networks.
• They are blogging like Tavi, a 13-Year-Old
• They will
will come
to school
using mobile
smart devices for simply everything as the
mobile web eclipses the desktop web
(Morgan Stanley study via Mashable, April 13, 2010).
 Class of 2015
• They will interact with and produce content
differently.
• Touch
 They Will Use Live Mobile Video
If you aren’t doing video from your phone, you should be. Cisco, the Internet
technology company, estimates that 64 percent of Internet traffic will come from
mobile video by 2013.

Think of what it will do for:

• -- telemedicine,
• -- mobile virtual presence,
• -- machine-to-machine applications such as telematics,
• -- enriched navigation experience,
• -- interactive gaming,
• -- remote sensing applications,
• -- mobile education systems,
• -- mobile emergency management systems,
• -- and far richer advertising opportunities for mobile advertising and entertainment.
 Sharing
• People are sharing video and it will only
continue to grow.
• Most mobile video is of poor quality due to
device limitations and networks, but what is
compelling is mobile live video. It will only get
better and become more pervasive in
everything we do.
 Now, back to the class of 2015
• Colleges will be competing hard for students
as the high school class of 2015 will be the
smallest since enrollment peaked at 3.12
million in 2009.
 Are You Above Average?
• Today, Facebook says that the average user
today has 130 friends, a year ago that was 120.
• Assume a 2 percent growth rate annually and
that’s an average friend count of 140 friends in
five years on FB.
• Even if Facebook’s population remains stable at
400 million people, that means some 56 billion
possible ‘friend’ connections. Think about what
happens if the average goes above that.
 High School Class of 2015
Facebook users from age 13-18 grew 88 percent
(5.7M to 10.7M) from Jan. 2009-Jan. 2010,
iStrategylabs says.
 New Networks, Not New Friends
• At some point, we are going to run out of new
people to friend and relationship webs on the
social graph will attain even higher value.
Already I see getting access to someone’s
network will become of even greater value
and the way to earn that now is through trust,
transparency and credibility. Build and share
your network.
• The Class of 2015 will be used to sharing
content.
 Facebook Creationists
• On Facebook, the average user creates 70
pieces of content each month. In aggregate,
more than 25 billion pieces of content (web
links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo
albums, etc.) are shared each month.
 Sharing and Knowing
• You will share a lot online. Monitor your public
persona and know what your name returns.
Contribute good stuff and build connections
with people. Share your special knowledge,
become that go-to person.
 Social capital
• In http://globalhumancapital.org/?p=675, the
blogger says:
 The New Web: Game-Changer
• Pervasive Web 2.0 also means re-examination
or disruption of most areas of life, culture,
society, government and business because
social networks alter how many and what kind
of relationships people have
• Let’s take a look at this want ad that appeared
yesterday in the Huffington Post. Are you
qualified to go after the job of associate social
news editor?
• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/p/jobs-at-hu
ffingtonpostcom
.
 Hot Sector of Journalism
• Forbes said in December that this sector is one
of the hottest in journalism:
• http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/09/social-
media-director-business-media-
journalism.html 
 Your skills package:
• Regardless of whether you are a print
journalist or a broadcast journalist, today you
should be able to do your work in both text
and visually. And, it should be findable.
 You are Part of Something Bigger
• You are empowered by the skills and
traditions of the generations that have gone
before you in this field. You have an important
part to play in a democratic society.
In February, 2010, Robert Hernandez wrote in
OJR that the top skills for Web journalists are:
• solid news judgment,
• strong ethics,
• thrive under deadline,
• accuracy,
• a mastery of the AP Stylebook.
 Other skills are

• Basic knowledge of HTML (links),

• experience with CMS,
• working understanding of SEO,
• being social in social media and
• the willingness to try new technologies.
 Ability to tell stories in all media:
• Know how to write for text, photos, audio,
video and the combination of any of them. At
the very least, know and respect each of these
crafts and how they are used on the Web.
• The most important skill is journalism, not the
latest technology.
 The Journalism Market
• Average circulation figures for newspapers
dropped 8 percent for the six-month period
ending in March
 The New York Times

• lost 8 percent of its circulation in that time

while the Wall Street Journal was the only
publication to show growth.
 Advertising Won’t Pay the Bills
• Some are predicting online advertising will
surpass newspaper advertising by mid-decade.
• When this happens, we will be trading print
dollars for digital dimes. Going to have to
generate a lot of page views to make a living.
• $27,000 PVs a day=$30,000 a year salary.
 Writers and Editors Employment Outlook

• The market is expected to grow faster than

average, but keen competition is expected for
writing and editing jobs as many people are
attracted to this occupation. At the same time,
many employers are downsizing.
 Writers and editors
• Those who have adapted to the new media
and are comfortable writing for and working
with a variety of electronic and digital tools
will have an advantage in finding new work.
• Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
 Getting Work Published

• The declining costs of self-publishing and the

growing popularity of electronic books and
book readers will allow many freelancers to get
their work published.

• Some job openings will arise as experienced

workers retire, transfer to other occupations, or
leave the labor force.
Median annual wages for salaried editors were:
 =
• $49,990 in May 2008.
• The middle 50 percent earned between $36,690
and $69,140.
• The lowest 10 percent earned less than $28,090,
and the highest 10 percent earned more than
$95,490.
• Median annual wages of those working for
newspaper, periodical, book, and directory
publishers were $49,280.
 The broadcast side,

• Some 400 local television news journalists lost

their jobs in 2009, according to research
conducted by Bob Papper.
The LocalNewser blog described the outlook
for this year as:
• a year of local news broadcast journalists
feeling more confident of holding on to their
jobs, though those jobs will probably mean
doing a lot more than ever before, and it's still
not a great time to be re-negotiating a new
contract.
 The Futurist Magazine
 

• http://www.wfs.org/forecasts.htm
 Globalization

• The United States will see a significant

proportion of its population emigrate due to
overseas opportunities.
 Millennial-generation learners —
those born after 1992 — are growing up in a
mobile, personalized, on-demand media
environment that poses challenges to
traditional classroom-bound educators.
Education will be portable, and learning will
be ‘on-demand.’
• Education may follow the entertainment-
delivery model, allowing customers (learners)
to download what they want and use it when
they want it.
 Faculty
• Will increasingly upload lectures and
educational “playlists” to podcasting services
for students to attend at their convenience.
— Tomorrow in Brief, Sep-Oct 2006, p. 2
 Text will be instantly translated into
multimedia presentations
• No more waiting for the movie version: Rapid
language processing will create multimedia
animations of your favorite book (or any text,
such as directions to a museum in a foreign
city).
• Storytellers could use the technology to create
more-realistic storyboards from eye-witness
reports.
— Tomorrow in Brief, July-Aug 2006, p. 2
 The production of art will increase
 
But the audience for art shrinks.
New media such as video, virtual reality, and
hyperlinked text will create new methods for artistic
expression.
• But fine art is facing increased competition for
viewers’ time and attention among “easier” forms of
leisure, such as video games and television.
-- RAND Corporation report, “A Portrait of the Visual
Arts.” — World Trends & Forecasts, Jan-Feb 2006, p.
10
 Superlongevity

What would you do if you knew you would be working

for 50 years or more?
• More young people will opt to not only pursue
postgraduate education, they may remain in school
well into their 20s or early 30s in order to train for the
complex jobs required in our advanced society.
• More people in their 50s will also return to school to
start new careers.
— Michael G. Zey, “The Superlongevity Revolution:
How It Will Change Our Lives,” Nov-Dec 2005, p. 16
 Workers over the age of 55 are

• expected to grow from 14% of the labor force

to 19% by 2012.
• In less than five years, 77 million baby
boomers in the United States will begin
reaching age 65, the traditional retirement
age.
• As a result, the idea of “retirement” will
change significantly.
 Who is the Financial Boss?
• According to McKinsey, “by 2015, boomers
will control nearly 60% of US net wealth and
account for 40% of US consumption and
income.”
• http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:TiTRoUCrz3MJ:blogs.praized.com/seb/category/socio-demographics/+social-graph+2015+y
outh&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a
• Humanity or Machine-ity?