Thanks, good advice

My point is, I can remember in 2003, when I stood in front of students and couldn’t really say much about a future online. The hangover from the dot.com crash still meant that if a journalism student wanted a job, they probably wouldn’t find one doing online journalism. I couldn’t lie to students and say that they could find a job online after school. There weren’t many. Most of my friends who did online journalism in the late 90s were in another line of business entirely.

I also had to be realistic about what they would be doing if they found a job. They wouldn’t be creating content. They would be repackaging someone else’s content.

In 1999, I remember going to the Webby’s with BBC News Online. Buzz, money and the future. By 2001, job losses, schadenfreude by old media types about the ‘internet fad’ and little future. In 2004, the internet, which never really went away, is back. By 2006, newspapers in the US are in meltdown: Job cuts and whole chains being sold and broken up.

I always knew the future is digital, but the industry has been in turmoil since I started in the mid-90s. I second what Rob Curley said, and I quoted: Skillset is important, but mindset is more so. The old lines between print and broadcast are not relevant. Students need to be prepared to learn and change to land and keep a job.

As for the fight for relevance by the mainstream media, all I will say is that I’ve always tried to ride the wave instead of hold back the tide.

I don’t think students get value for money either, especially since the fee rise up to £3,000 for those who started this year.

I think for the media industry it’s good to have all these ‘wannabe journalists’ coming through from media courses because you can plug holes in the newsroom with free work experience people - some of whom might actually have the skills you’re looking for.

I think the NCTJ is an incredibly outdated institution and will eventually find itself cast out in the cold as universities choose not to affiliate and more and more students realise they don’t actually need the stuffy qualification. If you can ‘do’ journalism, then someone will always hire you.

As for media economics - students just don’t see the relevance. We can tell them till we are blue in the face that things are changing but then in the next class we have to tell them that they need shorthand or some NCTJ wedded editor wont give them a job. When you need to commit so much time to something like shorthand then reading an economics book is low on the agenda.

Howard – You are so right, mentors and evangelists are the key. We just need to get a few people from industry to take on those roles rather than the ‘I got here without all that stuff and it didn’t do me any harm’ idea that seems to hang over the industry like a bad smell.

Nigel - I agree with you that students do find themselves on a production line of education. The expectation that you do school, do college, gap year maybe, university, gap year and then postgrad is one that is embedded in the way we do things.

That is something that needs sorting out but I think it’s a bit unfair to expect that as the last ones in the chains Universities are the ones who have to do it. It’s almost like we are getting it from both ends. De-programme the students but don’t stray too far from what they expect - they are the customer you know - and industry won’t hire them.

Maybe one of those we can deal with. That’s why I’m asking for industry to be a bit more responsible with the environment and expectations they create. Then we have one less set of preconceptions to work against.

I have to agree with a number of his comments about what you regard as the conservatism of journalism students in failing to embrace totally the new technology.You are right when you link some of the causes with the environment that we have to operate it and there is no doubt that job security breeds conservatism.

I would go further Andy,because I think that the problem is not just in journalism but it is in education as a whole.

Being able to look at the situation from the perspective of a mature student,

It strikes me that students come to university now as merely the next stage in the production line of life,having been consistently battered by the continuous examination and testing that has dictated their lives to date.
This ,coupled with the need to enter a society, that increasingly judges us on materialism,will breed a conservative outlook and a need to conform.

It is up to people like you to ensure that after three years ,the course will produce free thinking journalism students who are willing to take risks and develop the industry further.

As for the last quote … journalists who have not taken the time and effort to really learn and absorb this medium really have no business writing commentary about it. I mean, free speech and all, but they embarrass themselves with the depth of their ignorance.

Another problem is that journalism schools generally don’t teach media economics. The conservative student attitude reminds me of those newspaper types who were saying, a few years ago, “but Craigslist doesn’t have a Baghdad bureau, so it isn’t anything to worry about”.

Students need to understand that the structural change in publishing is happening whether they like it or not, and that this is going to have consequences for what kind of jobs are going to be available for them in the future.