One might expect campus newspapers to be more cutting edge, driven by new media-apt students.

“Yet journalism education is lagging behind industry in embracing the new media technologies that students will need to be competitive in the work place,” reports Inside Higher Ed.

According to a survey led by James Madison University, nearly all newspapers, even the smallest, now require multimedia skills.

In the large newspaper category (circulation above 44,000 copies), eight of nine managing editors requires reporters to be able to capture audio, four required audio editing skills, five asked reporters to be able to capture video and one require video editing skills.

Most often journalism students still seem to think about their work in terms of a fixed medium, which they chose in high school. This can be worsened during their college education due to lack of resources, available technologies, or simply because faculty isn’t trained to multimedia either.

On the other hand, college newspapers don’t face the same structural and economic problems as does the newspaper industry, and college media in general have improved their offerings.

91% of college newspapers had an online edition in 2007. In 2007, 38% of college media used podcasts (20.9% in 2006), 35% used RSS feeds (23% 2006), 30% used streaming video and 42% used embedded video (respectively 16.6% and 9.6% in 2006), and 57% now included commenting features, versus 40% the previous year.

So journalism schools are on the right track, just not at the right pace.

Source: Inside Higher Ed