Moving too fast

The lecture by David Ledford titled “Evolving in a digital world” impressed me. But at the same time, it scared me. A story can benefit greatly from audio and visual elements. However, I’m afraid of what this might mean for the future of journalism and for my future as a starting journalist.

I enjoy photography, film and radio, but I’ve not had work experience with them. As I think about the future and the demands that I will face during my internship, I worry a lot. It is frightening to think that I will have to produce several stories a day under deadline. I also might have to produce blogs, updates for the newspaper’s Web site and multimedia pieces to go with a print story. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to juggle all those things in a day without loosing my mind. The idea that journalism is changing even more also scares me. Journalists now have to juggle several things at a time. Because of that, they might be forced to produce shorter stories.

In today’s forum titled “The Press, the Public and the Death Penalty,” one of the panelists made a valid point about the complexity of the death penalty and the way journalists cover the issue. Kenneth Starr, dean and professor of law at Pepperdine University, said that one of the cases he worked on in California did not receive media coverage. One of the reasons, he said, was because the law and cases that deal with capital punishment are complex. In order to report on the law, a reporter must understand the law. Other panelists agreed with Starr. They said some reporters who interviewed them had only a day to report the story. They also said that reporters did not follow up, and it's important to do so to understand a case.

One of the reasons why I am so passionate about journalism is because I am a curious person. I like to know how and why things work the way they do. The transition from the fast world of journalism into an even faster world of journalism scares me. Not just because of the daily deadlines but because of the resulting quality of the product.

-- Maria Ines Zamudio, Summer 2007 Scholar, Springfield (Mo.) News-Leader and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign