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An Invitation to Young Journalists

A message from Columbia Journalism Review:

Back in June, we gave one of our interns here at Columbia Journalism Review the
daunting task of tracking newspaper buyouts and layoffs since 2007. She
diligently worked the press clips and the phone and counted up to 2,700 by the
end of the summer. The spreadsheet is not definitive but it is
depressing—statistics from a plague (three here, twenty there; eighty here,
150 there) that is moving through newsrooms across the country.
Yet at the same time, a world of news innovation is emerging online, both
inside and outside of mainstream media. A recession looms like an iceberg but
under the waterline is something unknown, a great restructuring of the way
people get their news and information. The recession will end, but the fate of
quality journalism is not easily discernable. Here at CJR, we intend to do all
we can to shed light on that future and to explore the efforts under way to
repair or replace the economic model. And also to give voice to those affected.

In July, we invited laid-off and bought-out journalists to reflect on their
experience in the form of a letter to colleagues. We published a number of them
on our Web site under the rubric Parting Thoughts, at cjr.org/parting_thoughts/,
and will continue to do so as they arrive.

Now we are issuing a similar invitation to the young people who’ve come into
the profession in the last five years or so, and the young journalism students
who soon will. We invite them to air their concerns and hopes about journalism,
too. The central questions: What do you see in this business that makes you
still want to pursue it? How do you imagine people will get quality news five
years down the road? How will you try to fit in?

We’ll call this one Starting Thoughts, and if you fit the category (or know
young reporters or journalism students who do), we invite you to join the
discussion by emailing us at editors@cjr.org. We’re looking for anything from
600 to 1,200 words. Please put “Starting Thoughts” in the slug line.

Regards,

The editors
Columbia Journalism Review
Published Thursday, September 18, 2008 2:41 PM by AieshaLittle

Comments

# re: An Invitation to Young Journalists

Thursday, September 25, 2008 4:02 PM by GenePark
Thanks for posting this Aiesha!

I've been thinking a lot about you and Sonya's discussion about old and new media, and this invitation has given me more to think about.

I hope to write them soon, and post my own thoughts on this blog as well.

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