If anything, this was a depressing look at what happens when young, energetic college grads-turned cubicle drones meet the iron fist of corporate, bureaucratic hell. To their credit, they were honest but spent most of their 45 minutes complaining about the lack of budget, vision, and technological savvy of their superiors at Media General.
Clearly, the jobs of these two students revolve solely around bringing in ad dollars through business-friendly projects such as their upcoming "Find A DayTrip.com," a new website with a print quarterly component focused around individual and pre-packaged daytrips on a statewide level. Apparently anytime they try to get innovative, it is deemed too expensive. What managers are looking for nowadays is big return on little investment (like IReporters who turn in content for free).
After informing the small crowd of mostly undergraduates that it was important to wear a suit to interviews ... the team of Phil Hillard and Michael Terpak bemoaned the "backwards" old fogeys at Media General who hold "meetings about meetings."
As is becoming the case across journalism, nothing flies unless it brings in money.
Another interesting point the "young Turks" brought up was that they are not evaluated in any capacity. They receive feedback constantly, but no formal evaluation. Perhaps because they are contractors, who knows?
In terms of innovation, both saw a future that involved user-friendly web media and the ability to interact with customers ... but they were mum on specifics, besides mentioning a company called Concursive with "great small business tools" (such as free CRM, or customer relationship management) that Media General is working with. When asked point blank if the corporate politics of Media General stifled innovation, both responded with a hearty "yes."
A more interesting discussion came during the forum later that night in Harris Hall, “The First Amendment, Freedom of the Press and the Future of Journalism," held as part of the 100th anniversary of The National Press Club.
VCU instructor Jeff South (pictured below) rightfully expressed his worry that local media was losing its watchdog role, ceding that fundamental duty to bloggers.
Meanwhile, fiery Nancy Kent (also pictured), news director at NBC 12,drew cheers from yours truly when she discussed the VP debate and begged the question of when mainstream media was going to "start asking the follow-up question?"
No wonder people are jumping ship with a media as boring, tame and predictable as the one we have now. That young generations are going to Jon Stewart (and my old co-worker Jason Ross, who has written for Daily Show since 2002 and now has somewhere around 400 Emmys) for their news context. A comedy show, mind you, does a better job stringing together facts.
When asked what employers were looking for, Kent insisted that young people know how to write and think critically (be able to research, pull facts from documents) before applying for a media job, something that seems to often be ignored in school programs racing to keep up with technology trends.
If you don't know the basics, it's difficult to be innovative and save journalism from falling off a cliff.
What really disturbs me is the insistence on catering to the lowest common denominator--on allowing the audience to pick nearly all the content. Porn is really popular too, but we shouldn't all move to Simi Valley.
Finding a way to make money is the reality, I understand this. But it can be done without giving up on the fundamentals of investigative journalism and becoming round-the-clock salesmen. Journalism has to be confident that rising generations want real reporting, and they have to do a better job of explaining difficult subjects in a stimulating, more visual way.
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