Social media isn't just fun for today's college journalists, it's essential as they look to expand their skills as well as their portfolio. In a new post on MediaShift, journalism instructor Alfred Hermida shares how students are maximizing the reach and power of social media to do their journalism and build their personal brands as newspeople.
He writes: "Today's students should be building up their professional persona online through social media, creating a digital identity as an ambitious, engaged and curious reporter."
In addition to connecting with sources through Twitter, his students use their blogs as their "business card," showing off their professional as well as school work.
Hermida concludes:
"Being active online, sharing experiences and engaging with audiences is fundamental for students looking to enter journalism. It is even more important at a time when journalism students are uneasy about their job prospects. Budding journalists have always had to work hard to get themselves established. But the emergence of social media, through platforms such as Twitter, has added a new dimension to this, one that the reporters of tomorrow cannot afford to ignore."-rp-
(Photo credit: "The Ultimate Blogger's Kit" by m-c, courtesy of Flickr.com)
2 comments:
My take is that a web presence will become more and more important for any sort of professional. It would seem particularly true for journalists. There will always be a need for "professional journalists". Free user generated content can be fun and even pretty good, but I think there will always be a market for well crafted writing.
Indeed, fine writing never goes out of style.
-rp-
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