Where are the journalism jobs?

Michelle Hord, director of off-air recruiting for ABC News, says the answer to the question–where are the journalism jobs–is just one word: Digital. “We have new terms like preditors, producers who can also shoot and edit,” she told the Future of Journalism Jobs conference at the University of Maryland. ” It’s all about being able to do everything.”

Jim Joyce, senior vice president of NABET (a union that mostly represents TV technicians), also works at ABC on the technical side. He says there are plenty of jobs “in acquisition, distribution and preparation.” “We have material being delivered on smart phones and with digital [broadcasting] we can send out multiple streams on secondary channels.” All of that content needs to be provided and transmitted.

Holly Neilsen, director of video enterprises for Gannett, says “the jobs are going to be there but they’re going to be really different and you’re going to have to be trained differently to do those jobs.” At Gannett, everything is multimedia. “We are reformatting all of our newsrooms to be multimedia 24/7. Everyone is getting new titles. There won’t be line producers any more.” As for backpack journalism, she says, it isn’t new but it’s going to be a big deal. “It may be unpopular but it’s reality.”

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