Hits are for squares?

With the weekly flow of top-notch industry leaders power-pointing their hearts out for us, the Cardiff School of Journalism, it’s easy to get complacent.

Although asking a room full of budding hacks not to be too critical is a bit like asking Martin Johnson’s ears not to be too big, I think we have been spoiled — a fact any nostalgic thought of my first-year undergrad philosophy ‘lectures’ confirms.

OK, the seminars haven’t all been bulging with jaw-dropping information concerning the web’s journalistic faculties. At the time of his lecture, although a truly fascinating and talented individual, I felt Daniel Meadows was too concerned with the ‘anyone can do alternative story telling’ message and less worried about showing us something to appease the ubiquitous and pertinent ‘shitting our collective selves about jobs’ vibe.

However, having seen other examples of journalistic alternative story telling, rather than just something a ‘civilian’ was taught to knock together by some scheme, I have come around somewhat. I still think the message could have been more explicitly centered around how alternative story-telling can help us, though, using largely the same content.

Anyway.

A few weeks ago, we were given a lecture by BBC technology editor, Rory Cellan-Jones.

Some were put off by the fact that not ALL of the wisdom he imparted was sage-like (more the kind of thing we’re being told all the thyme). There were also some discrepancies with the dates on the slides — it’s hasn’t been 2008 for some time etc — but I really think it’s time for some perspective here.

Mr Cellan-Jones kindly squeezed us into his presumably packed schedule. So what if he didn’t hand paint each lecture slide; he made some very interesting and refreshing points — points which, considering who he is and how much more experience he had than the students put together, we’d do well to listen to.

Most importantly, he said that, although being multi-skilled is essential, very few people excel at everything.

Being multi-skilled hadn’t worried me; I’ve enjoyed most of the new tools we’ve been taught to use and relish the opportunity to earn some pounds doing so. I just like the idea of a profession where specialisation is still important. Without good grammar, plain English, hard work, an appreciation of news values, ethics and creativity, all the blogging techniques in the world will make you about as useful as Anne Frank’s drum-kit.

These core skills all lie at the heart of our training at Cardiff. I hope that, by somehow using the daunting plethora of gadgets presently available to us, we are still able to show this core understanding to separate us from more frothy commentators.