Online news editor says reporters must learn multimedia skills

Chet Rhodes, assistant managing editor for washingtonpost.
com, told mass communications students
Monday that strong writing alone is no longer sufficient
to make a career in the news world.

“For those of you really serious about being a
journalist, (video) is the newsroom of the future,”
he said to a group of about 30 students gathered in
the T. Edward Temple Building.

He said washingtonpost.com is not hiring oneskilled
people any longer. Instead, journalists should
be skilled in both strong reporting and video or
broadcasting capabilities.

“We need journalists who can take their content
and make it flow in all directions,” Rhodes said.

Rhodes said the surge of newsrooms merging into
Internet-based organizations with online media, blogs,
discussions and podcasts is exhilarating.

“We are in the most exciting, amazing time . in
the history of media,” he said.

Yet, Rhodes said, this merging can also be scary
if you’re trying to make enough money to put food
on the table.

Rhodes suggested students build their résumé to
land good jobs by not only becoming solid writers,
but learning flash, Web lingo and databases.

Deb Wenger, associate professor of mass communications,
asked if pressures on journalists to
provide video and photography work as well as Web
and print versions of stories is decreasing the quality
of journalism.

“It has the potential to decrease the quality of
journalism, if you don’t give them the training and
the support they need when they’re out on the field,”
Rhodes said.

But instead of decreasing the strength of journalism,
putting cameras in the hands of journalists is a very
powerful tool, Rhodes said.

Rhodes played a clip from washingtonpost.com
in which one of the news organization’s Middle East
reporters caught on camera a violent attack on his
vehicle. Instead of decreasing this reporter’s ability
to cover the situation, the camera enhanced his
skills by allowing him to keep a precise and accurate
account of what occurred, as well as provide viewers
with visual evidence of the situation.

“If used in a smart way,” Rhodes said, “(video) .
has the potential to make journalism a lot better.”

Rhodes said washingtonpost.com is fighting
to survive as a news service. Rhodes also said
washingtonpost.com is combating competition by
creating iPod downloads, training reporters in video
technique and forming online discussions for readers
to engage in.

Rhodes said washingtonpost.com’s biggest competition
is not The New York Times. Instead, the
No. 1 competition is video-based CNN.

Rhodes said one of washingtpost.com’s online
tools created to draw readers is a votes database.
This database tracks every vote in Congress and
allows users to follow bills they are interested in
or search for vote information by searching region,
state or legislator.

“It lets them dive into the one bill they are very
interested in,” Rhodes said. “We are also tracking
where all the candidates go.”