As a designer, my career in journalism feels particularly tied to print. I was trained to lay out stories in an aesthetically pleasing format, to make sure information could be consumed in bite-sized pieces. I wasn’t trained to code websites, to write with a “blog voice” (whatever that means), or to create slideshows with sound. My job was supposed to be a one-shot deal, laid out on paper and frozen forever once it was done.
The whispers of “online publications” and “print is dead” panicked me at first. I wanted to cling to my columns and grids, my pull quotes and custom fonts. Breaking through that barrier, for me, was liberating. I may not be up to film editing at this point, but I’m off the page and onto the screen, a step most of us have now taken (some more tentatively than others).
Telling stories, presenting facts, facilitating conversation. These are the reasons we, as journalists and designers, get up day after day and put in the hours it takes to deliver news with impact. We may not always have our name in print. We may not always be able to utilize the gamut of our design abilities. But we stay true to our jobs as providers of information.
The Fellows I met at the Poynter Institute had more in common with me than aspirations in journalism and design: they had comfort zones, personal fortés, self-imposed limitations. Yet they were willing to step outside their boundaries, to learn and push and grow. And they succeeded with flying colors.
We now know how to tell stories the way they need to be told, whether through sound, film, photography, web interactivity, or a combination thereof. Do we all love print publications? Yeah. Do we want them to stick around? Of course. But none of us can say for certain what the future of journalism holds; most of us are just hoping to be able to unfold a newspaper in 15 years, to share it with our kids instead of waxing nostalgic about its obsolescence.
Whatever happens to the format of journalism, the bottom line is that there will always be the need for solid communication, for clear and compelling story-telling.
I think we’ll be just fine.
