David Klatell, Vice Dean responsible for international development at Columbia Journalism School, addressed the audience at "Les Nouvelles Pratiques du Journalisme" conference, hosted by the Ecole de journalisme de Sciences Po, Paris about how Columbia is adapting to new practices in journalism.

Currently, Columbia students and faculty are "incredibly active online" to engage with audiences on digital platforms, but the digtal world is in constant motion and so is the landscape of journalism, hence Klatell states "every two or three years we will change everything" to keep abreast of the changes in the industry.

One example of the school's ability to react to change is their new degree programme in journalism and computer science. In the programme they learn "detailed coding" and other aspects of computer science to allow them to enter data journalism and to create software to aid journalistic projects.

Klatell believes that graduates with that combined degree, journalism and computer science, will be "amongst the top executives" in the news industry in the near future.

Columbia Journalism School is also hiring younger faculty members, for instance Emily Bell, who shares her knowledge of analytics and "the science of public engagement" with students. The youngest professor in the history of the school has just been employed as part of this initiative; she is 30 years old and a specialist in data visualisation.

According to Klatell, it's "no surprise that the new stars of the faculty are women, I suspect that's going to be a trend".