This pissed me off, for a few reasons. If someone wants to start a reporting career in today's industry, they need to be fully aware of its pitfalls. The pay is awful. I was always told it would be awful in journalism school. Teachers are paid better. It is even worse now that the MBAs behind every publication have found ways to cut costs because anyone who can blog can -- in their minds -- be a journalist. Truth: I am paid less now, as a reporter with 15 years experience than I was a year out of college, ink still drying on my journalism degree. You get into the career because it's a borderline adventurous lifestyle. You get access to people and places most don't. There's a thrill to breaking news or just telling a good story. Why teach students to code? Because only being able to report, write and edit makes you as worthless as the guy who thought a bachelors in creative writing would be great preparation for a dying job market. Coding -- even the kind this writer bitches about -- is not a waste of time. It's an additional skill. It is a tool to fall back on when journalism as we know it really dies and there's no need for reporters -- the kid down the block with a blog (that he built because he knows code) has just eliminated your job. That's a bit dramatic. But in seriousness, I would argue there are not enough students -- in every field -- being taught 21st century skills. For someone in communications, those skills might involve coding to be able to develop UX and UI prototypes (high demand). A new branch of journalism is evolving -- visual journalism -- that touches upon design and semiotics to communicate stories. I can see where business schools or scientific fields would benefit from teaching students data visualization. Media theorist Marshall McLuhan said the medium is the message. The information medium has changed drastically. Think of the way someone consumed stock quotes in 1980 and today. Our media are highly visual, interactive. In 1980, you look at numbers; today you see charts of performance over time and can interact with that detail second by second, maybe even learn why a stock rose or dipped with the click of a mouse or swipe of a finger. So yeah, this article presented itself to me as woefully ignorant, just not about the state of the industry, but the state of the media, something she now possesses a graduate degree in. (And I could care less about the fact she's writing for Atlantic; every new journalist will come to learn they'll write 100 mediocre stories for every gem. They may never write a story that earns them recognition. There is a lot of grunt work to be done before glory can be hand, and sometimes that never comes.)
I wanted to do Journalism at a time, but I decided to switch to CompSci for pretty much this commenter's reason: I love writing, but I'm not sure if it's a good way to make money. As long as I'm good at CompSci, I shouldn't have a problem getting a job, and that gives me more leeway to be a writer, a coder, or both. That being said, if you really do like journalism, whether you code or not, it shouldn't be a problem to get a job in the field. I'm currently working as a Technical Writer for my school, and I like it and I'm good at it. I've put some effort into the job and gotten a few large projects done, and decided to add them to my LinkedIn profile. I've gotten two job offers already, one for $65,000. In the end, I think it's all about experience. So I suppose I agree with this writer, in the sense that I don't think coding is going to magically get you a writing position. But experience probably will.They say you should do what you want to do and the money will follow. I'd like to amend that to do what you want to do, but do something to make a living too so you don't wind up a destitute street person or living in your mother's basement while you're doing what you want to do.
Technical writing is very different from journalism. But if you find you are good at both coding and writing, that makes you ideal for communicating -- I'd even say 'translating' -- a difficult concept to a more palatable one. I'm sure I have the communications and geek skills to be a technical writer. But I sometimes I find writing in-depth, step-by-step detail very taxing. It is actually one of the characteristics that leaves me frustrated when coding. I don't care what anyone says; in today's computer-driven society, I don't think you have a choice in learning some tech-related skill. And I don't mean being able to post to Facebook or operate Microsoft Word. Having a basic understanding of systems and their processes, how things relate and interact, understanding how we consume technology and how to properly develop for it -- whether it be a web page, an app or new hardware -- will be as essential as reading, writing and mathematics in this century.
It's funny, I just saw your response and wanted to comment this to you. I think you'll find this paper rather interesting, and in-line with what you're thinking. I agree with it as well. There has been an assumption that people my generation are "better with technology," but only in the sense that they're able to handle computers without issue, in the same way people a generation above us are able to handle telephones, TVs, etc. without issue. Coding, either through web-design or something like Python or C++, is a really valuable skill to have.
Yes, yes, yes! Thank you for sharing that paper. I have bookmarked it. From a brief glance, that's exactly the kind of subject matter I've been throwing around to professors when I talk about seeing a merger of media and computer science. No -- we're not turning the j-school into a math and science geek fest; there are a lot of elements to what we do as communicators that are tied to technology and vice versa. I have no issue with CS sticking with theoretical advancements; but I'd love to see communications schools learn from them and apply the lessons in practical settings (media is a great field in which people can accumulate skills, not just knowledge). I think it is a false sense to think younger generations are tech savvy. They're not. This is what prompted computer engineers in the UK to create the Raspberry Pi -- to teach children basic programming and computer skills that are no longer taught (because the computer became a medium as opposed to a tool). Thank you so much for sharing that paper!
I'm currently working as a Technical Writer for my school, and I like it and I'm good at it
-What kind of work does that entail? Have you written anything I could read? -I'm always curious about the writers we have around here. I enjoy reading peoples original work.
Ah, it's not particularly interesting, to be honest, haha. It's just internal documantion for my school's Registrar's Office. I have to present new technology and the office's procedures as clearly and efficiently as possible. So for example, when our new printers moved into the office, I had to take pictures of the printers, go through the instruction manual, and create instructions on how to operate the printers in simple terms, but with enough detail to make sense. Then I created a second document for our internal wikipedia page detailing any troubleshooting solutions that us student techs can use if the printers are malfunctioning. Another example would be having to learn the ins-and-outs of our new timeclock punch-out system. It can seem a bit dry, but I've always been interested in how things work and why, and that translates well into the job. I was the kid that would always push buttons to see what happens, the only difference is I write what happens now, haha.
What the hell does she think editing is? I guess she doesn't care about typos, style errors and making sure her facts are right because those details are tough to catch, too. One thing I always tell people is that my skill set to edit words also translates into debugging code. English is a language. Code is a language. There is no debugger for English, so you had better have an excellent grasp of its rules and syntax to make your writing 'work.'Entire projects hinged on small, context-free details that were impossible for me to catch.
Shared for awesome discussion and Hubski's brutal destruction of the author's ridiculous and idiotic and infuriating points. Good work team.