For those who could not attend the Media Summit on Saturday you missed Andy Mehalshick's engaging lecture on his experience as a journalist.
What I found to be the most captivating piece of Mr. Mehalshick's speech were his thoughts about social media, saying that while it is a great thing it will never replace the essentials. As a journalist he was saying it will never replace the face to face meetings, the knocking on doors, and the interviews. This sentiment contradicts some of my previous posts where I discusses social media's impact on businesses and even politics. However he made many itneresting points and had examples to support his arguments, shopwing that social media will never replace what it means to be a journalist, or as Andy said, the instincts and the passion.
Another interesting piece from his speech that I think we should all remember; passion is what makes a great journalist. He states that while he has seen some very intelligent people walk through the doors at his news station, the great reporters are the ones with the most passion. Now, while most of us are not journalists I think this piece of advice applies to everything, no matter how smart you are, no matter how well read you are, no matter how many degrees you have, if you want to succeed at what you do you need to have passion.
I agree with your comments above. I believe that we as humans will never be able to completely get away from face-to-face interaction. During an interview, people must be able to read body language directly and feel the 'vibes' of the other individual. Because of this we can't revert to purely virtual social interaction. I also agree that passion is very important when choosing a career path. I once had to compose a response to an essay which posed the question, "Which would you rather have, a true love for your job/career or a large income?" Of course I chose the sentimental way out and I went with the response that states passion was greater than simply a large paycheck every two weeks. However, money is something, it just isn't everything.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with the idea that face-to-face communication will always be important. I am a member of the National Broadcasting Society on campus and every spring semester I attended a national convention where I had the opportunity to meet with professionals in the mass communication field. At these conventions there are 'round table' sessions where students can sit down with a professional and talk to them for a couple minutes. It was in this session my freshman year that I realized I did not know what to say, what to ask, how to act. This face-to-face communication was really difficult for me. Since then I've worked on being more personable talking to someone one-on-one, because I realize this is a skill that will be needed, especially in the mass communication field.
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