Technical skills needed to be a journalist

At one time just knowing your way around a keyboard and how to switch on a computer monitor were about all the technical skills needed to be a journalist.

In the days before Google, if you wanted to be a newspaper journalist the key skills were more about being an effective communicator, having good writing and grammar skills and knowing the basics of MS Word.

Today?

Strong technical skills coupled with the latter PLUS various personal skills are what editors will be looking for when appointing new recruits.

Now I'm not just talking about being able to use a search engine or knowing your likes from your pokes on Facebook - although being able to use the Internet and social media such as Facebook and Twitter etc is important too - but being confident at using a digital camera, video recording and editing, pod casting, RSS etc; will give you the edge over the competition.

Back in the 'dark ages' when I started out as a staff reporter (more than 15 years ago), a notebook and pen, a telephone and using a huge, clunky old Apple Mac were how things were done.

By the time I left the industry as a staff journalist in 2009, I was filming and editing interviews, managing the newspaper's website and heading up micro-sites.

These days, it is the job of the individual journalist to not only come up with the goods and write copy for the newspaper, but to write and upload to the Internet, conduct interviews and edit video footage for the company's website and take decent photographs. Being able to self edit them using Photoshop is a big bonus.

So in a nutshell, all those once established boundaries between broadcast journalism and photo journalism etc have been blurred and today's print journalist needs to be up to speed with as many new technologies, software packages and online resources as possible.

Knowing what I know, if I were starting out in newspaper journalism nowadays, I would make sure my CV or resume showed that I could demonstrate ALL of the traditional skills PLUS strong skills in the following:

• Video filming and editing

• Digital camera operation and photo editing

• Knowledge and use of the Internet and social media networking on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest etc

• Podcasting

• RSS

• Social bookmarking and media sharing

• Use of content management systems and blogs