Mass Comm Week

At Mass Comm Week, I was able to see Evan Smith, Editor and CEO of the Texas Tribune and David Brindley, Managing Editor of National Geographic.

Both professionals were incredibly inspiring and touched a similar things. One thing that seemed to be clear- the journalism world is changing and it is up to the industry to keep up. Smith discussed how if you don’t put the right things on the dinner table, the kids won’t eat. It’s all about making them come to the table, he said.

With social media and new forms of technology, we are able to keep up and bring everyone to the dinner table and get them reading. Journalism is no longer a printed newspaper that arrives on your doorstep every morning. It’s Snapchat stories and Instagram photos and live tweets. People are consuming their news differently and they want it fast.

At Brindley’s discussion, he talked about multi-platform storytelling. National Geographic can no longer just push out their print product and be done with it. They have to think about every single way they can tell the story visually and execute it well. That means they’re thinking about what will look good on an iPad and what will work for Twitter or for their television channel. It’s the same story, but it gets executed differently for each medium.

All in all, Mass Comm Week was super cool, as always. I was able to talk to people I probably would have never had the chance to and network with my own peers. I also got to serve on a panel to talk about my experience covering the Memorial Day floods.