This week the Detroit Free Press made some major changes. The paper will only be delivered Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. This is a huge step for a major metropolitan newspaper. As a journalism major and an avid Freep reader I was really curious about these changes. For my capstone class I am taking part in a project called Media Giraffe. The goal is to interview people with an innovative media presence on the internet. I figured these bold moves by the Free Press definitely qualify as innovative. I contacted the Freep through twitter to setup an interview. They responded right away and I was able to interview Steve Dorsey. He's their Deputy Managing Editor for Presence and Innovation. The interview was extremely interesting, I think we talked for 30 minutes. It wasn't only an interview about the Free Press: it was an interview about the future of journalism and the state of the industry. I am currently writing my piece for the Media Giraffe site and I'll link to it when I'm done.
The newspaper industry isn't the only one experiencing changes, TV is changing too. The University of Missouri School of Journalism had a special guest. Russ Mitchell came in to talk about The Real World of TV News. He also showed a clip from his KOMU days - priceless. Russ took questions about everything from how he got into journalism to changes at the network level.
Both of these experinces brought me a lot of hope. Ask about the future of journalism and I bet 9 out of 10 times you'll get a negative response. I think we need to start seeing the positives in this industry. When this happens I think it will be easier to move forward even if that means a doing journalism differently.
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