I thought my career was a sure thing...

For a few months now I've been in the know that what I once thought was a "safe" career -- people will always need news! -- is not so much.

Watching Damon's presentation, reading headlines about a hundred and something reporters being fired, and editors walking out has made me realize that it is essential to be knowledgeable, if not capable of multimedia journalism. There isn't a desk waiting for me at a paper somewhere. There's a desk that I'm going to have to compete for.

It took me the majority of my college career to figure out what I actually want to do, and I was relieved and comforted when I decided I wanted to be a journalist. While I faced the fact that I wouldn't be rolling in the dough any time soon, I thought it was at least a stable career choice, and something that I loved. During the first few days at my internship at the Concord Monitor, I heard "newspapers are dying off," and even a warning once that I should know what I'm "getting myself into." I had always just assumed that newspapers were going to be necessities in life like milk. People were always going to buy them! But people might not. Why would people pay for the same news they can get for free and from their living room? Granted, I'm not saying that everyone who reads the newspaper is going to stop and turn to online, but that's definitely the trend.

When I first started working at the Concord Monitor, I visited their website and thought, wow this is prehistoric. It didn't have any place for breaking news, and hardly any place for world news. It wasn't very interactive and kind of turned me off. Over the course of my internship, I watched the guy in control of their website make a stink about how the website needed to be more up to date and the sooner the better. By the time I left they had a much better website. It looked more up to date, had a section for multimedia, and it fit a much better variety of news on the front. I can really see how people can judge your paper by its website.

I thought Damon's presentation was very interesting. I thought it was nice to see what his own paper was doing to try to keep up with the times. I think a lot of people are worried that the core of journalism is changing as the face of it changes. I think that unless we let it, the ethics, and substance will be the same it will just be presented in a different way. People in other careers are always having to update and change with technology, it would be wrong if journalists didn't. I think it's cool to have more ways to tell a story, and with different mediums the door is opened for different kinds of stories.

While, at first I thought my job options were dwindling, I now realize they're flourishing, they're just not as conventional as I might have expected. My first reaction to the statement, "newspapers are a dying breed" was to say, "Well what the hell am I wasting my time in these classes for?" but now I'm excited that I will get to learn all this new cool stuff and change along with the newspaper industry. Our generation is going to be the generation that makes over the journalism field and I think that's pretty cool.