paulconley: Students, teachers and visionaries

Seasonal food for thought from media consultant Paul Conley -- highly recommended to seniors writing their resumes... and to younger students thinking about taking my new online journalism class in the fall:

"Last week I visited Northwest Missouri State's new media program... So I've been giving a lot of thought of late to the next generation of journalists. And much of what I've been thinking hasn't been positive.

"Perhaps the strangest thing I've run into is what I've come to think of as the silo student. Kids keep handing me resumes that look like they were written 20 years ago. They mention the student newspaper, the yearbook and the college literary magazine. But they don't mention Web sites, blogs, email newsletters, podcasts, html skills, citizen journalism projects, video, etc.

"And when I ask the students about their online experience, I get these weird responses. Lots of them tell me 'I only want to work for a newspaper.' Lots of them say things like 'I'm going to be a writer, not anything else.' Some seem genuinely perplexed and ask me if I think 'most newspapers have Web sites?' or if 'reporters need to do things on the Web?'"