Brief Essay on WJMC for North Central News (local paper)

Attending the 2009 Washington Journalism and Media Conference in Washington, D.C. (hosted by George Mason University in nearby Fairfax, Virginia) was nothing short of incredible.  From the day I arrived at the Mason Fairfax campus (Sunday, July 12^th) until the day I left (Friday, July 17^th) I was immersed into the changing waters of journalism.  While our visits to the Newseum, the Smithsonian, the U.S. Capitol, and lectures from well-known individuals in journalism/media such as Brian Lamb (CEO of C-SPAN) and Chuck Todd (current White House Correspondent for NBC) were informative and interesting, learning about it all was the greatest part of the whole thing.  When I say “learning about it all” I mean to refer to learn/try out new forms of media such as blogs, vlogs (or video blogs), pod casting, and broadcasting.  We also were able to post stories of our daily adventures on our own blogs (created by us on the 12^th) throughout the week (these blogs were then reviewed by the facuilty advisor of the groups we were separated into as course work for the week, along with participation in group activities, in order to see if we deserved the single college credit promised to those who “passed” in the conference). 

            I believe that the single most important question answered during the week was “What is the future of journalism?”  Most all of the speakers/discussion panel members to whom the question was addressed answered that it certainly was a bright future.  This, they said, was due to the advent of the new media/news outlets of blogging, YouTube, social networking sites (including Facebook and Twitter), portable camcorders, and hand-held mobile devices such as the Palm Pilot and iPhone.  This was a very happy revelation to me, because long before I had even heard of the WJMC I had heard of nothing but the fast-approaching “death of journalism.”  People told me and I heard from other sources that this was due to the decrease in popularity of newspapers (mostly ones with national influence, as I later learned during the conference) and an increase in the new media forms I mentioned above.  I am very glad to say that journalism is not dying, but it is only going through a phase of evolution.

            I hope to pursue a journalism or communications degree in college (preferably one that would allow me to further explore different and new media, including everything I wrote of in the above paragraph as well as television and/or radio).  If not that then I would like to pursue International Relations/diplomacy, due to the fact that much of what goes on in journalism (such as understanding people/events, and putting together facts to get information and the truth on a situation) is a key portion of this field.  In the Fall of 2010 (and hopefully for my entire college career) I would like to attend Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey.  This is because of the school’s size (around 5,000 undergraduate students), it is close to New York City, they have exceptional Communications/International Relations programs, as well as an seemingly fantastic cafeteria.

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