A print report, a video story, podcasts, tweets, a photograph, content for the web or smartphone… the news story can take many forms today. The journalist has to be a multi-media content producer in the true sense. The training an aspiring journalist gets should also cater to these needs.

While some of the media training institutes have stuck on to the traditional methods, many have included training that will keep them updated with these technological innovations.  The challenge for them would be the absence of standardisation in these processes.  For instance, while some of the news channels are using mobiles in an emergency to shoot, others might be making use of a GoPro device.  And for transmitting live visuals using the mobile, many software ranging from Ustream, Whatsapp or Skype may be used. How does a media training school prepare a student to adapt to these different technologies available?

In my opinion, the idea would be to train the students to learn to adapt.  Learn the different concepts well and adapt them to the platform given by the organisation one works for. The tricky part of this philosophy is that the platform will also start dictating how the content is created and presented. A website, for instance, gives one the scope of a written text, a video, an audio recording, a presentation and even an interactive infographics. Such a professional should know how to write for print, script for television, create video content, have voicing skills and much more. In short, the teaching should cover all the basic skills required to understand the concepts behind each of the media.  That is, teach skills at a conceptual level.

Such training will also demand understanding content creation at the conceptual level. This would further mean the ability to convert the latest content delivery styles into a mental template. Templates which have scope to be manipulated in a creative way.

In my next blog post, I will be writing about how the inverted pyramid is being adapted to current content needs.