Are we expecting too much from reporters?

So, you thought you were going to be a writer?

Convergence, blogs, real-time audio and video were never topics discussed when I attended college in the early 1990s. In fact, I didn’t even have an e-mail account at the first newspaper I worked.

Now we have journalism graduates coming fresh out of school with their own web pages and blogs, classes in online media, audio and video editing and graphic design.

As I peruse the resumes of those that graduated in the 2000s I see references to Web links, HTML design, InDesign and Quark, Adobe Photoshop and programs I’m not familiar with and wonder, what happened to reporting and writing skills?

I’m concerned that we’re creating too many graduates that have an unrealistic picture of what a lot of newsrooms do. Likewise, I worry that newspapers are expecting reporters to know too much about working across multi-media platforms and not enough on solid reporting and writing skills.

Why do we expect someone to cover the news, develop sources, write features, spot, enterprise and in-depth stories, design pages, take pictures, capture video clips for the Web, write stories for the Web, write again for the print and do it quickly, efficiently, without error and with substance?

As an editor, I expect reporters to work hard, be able to write copy on deadline, develop sources that lead to hard news coverage of the community and get it right. As a manager at a small daily, I also have to expect them to learn page design, help with production of the daily edition, rewrite press releases, write obits, load copy to the Web site, work on advertising special sections, help customers, and work long hours with little or no notice.
Am I complaining? You bet!

I think we are asking our reporters to perform too many functions that have nothing to do with solid reporting and writing, and I think newspapers are suffering.

As a new graduate working at my first newspaper, I expected to work hard, to work nights and weekends if needed, to learn a lot of information in a short period of time and to be able to turn out copy in minutes.

Now, we want reporters to be writers, Web designers, video editors, photographers and page designers. Enough is enough.

I’m all for including all of these features as an essential part of any news operation, but I think we’re being unrealistic to expect the same person to do it all. We need to let the writers be writers, let the designers be designers. If we want a Web writer/blogger, hire them to do just that. But, don’t expect them to do it all and to do it all well.

“You can’t squeeze blood out of a turnip,” as the saying goes.