JP Digital Digest: New Roles For Multimedia Newsrooms

The changing nature of information means that the role of the journalist must also change, according to academic and blogger Paul Bradshaw.

So he has come up with a set of six new roles which journalists could fulfill as part of his vision for A Model for the 21st Century Newsroom.

His six suggested roles are:

1 – THE AGGREGATOR SUB

“To collect feeds together (aggregating), identify the useful and relevant stuff (filtering), publish it (bookmark-blogging), identify legal issues and verify where necessary.”

2 – THE MOBILE JOURNALIST

3 – THE DATA MINER

“The investigative journalist of the 21st century is someone who can work with databases and spreadsheets, picking out interesting patterns, pushing the powerful for data, and having an understanding of the vagaries of statistics.”

4 – MULTIMEDIA PRODUCER

“An understanding of how a story or issue can be explored on a range of media makes a significant difference in how you come up with story ideas and gather information.”

“They may not do all the work themselves ... but they can see the possibilities.”

5 – NETWORKED SPECIALIST

“Now it’s not just about knowing their subject area, and the big names, but also being visibly networked in that environment, blogging, vlogging, bookmarking and commenting across their specialist parts of the blogosphere.”

6 – COMMUNITY EDITOR

“Building communities, helping start or fuel conversations, preventing them turning nasty, supporting users, inviting guidance and help, and assisting them in certain projects.”