Technologies might converge, but do the skill sets?

Caption: Dave Seibert suggested that we shot wide - medium - and close-up to have a variety of images

Dave Seibert is living proof of the convergence of technologies and the skill sets that are required of today's journalists. Seibert is a senior news video producer for the Arizona Republic. In the past, he would have been pidgeon-holed into video and that would be it. Today, he's had roles as a staff photographer and a multimedia director, amongst other.

In a talk to the Reynolds Institute high school journalism teachers on Tuesday, Dave was very open that to be successful today, young journalists not only needed writing skills, but also needed skills in capturing shots in both still and video, which gives rise to the topic I'd like to blog about: While the technologies may converge, the skill sets do not.

In the world that is now largely gone with the wind, you were expected to spend your lifetime honing an individual craft, such as being a reporter, staff photographer, or video production expert. Each was a separate world with a series of skills that you needed to master. For myself, I spent many years as a reporter in the world of high technology. I not only had to worry about my writing and reporting skills, but also had to learn about the industry I was covering, which kept moving faster and faster as the years rolled on (I began in the mid-1970s). That to me seemed hard enough without having to also master being a photographer and a video expert.

I didn't really get serious about photography until about five years ago after my career in journalism had ended. About a year ago, I started to get interested in video and when I purchased a new camera, an important criteria was its ability to do video as well as stills. The more I got into it, however, the more I realized that the fields of still and video were both sufficiently complicated that each had its own lengthy learning curve that could stretch a lifetime.

Basically, it's one thing to take a camera and shoot an image. It's another to know how to do it with a modicum of skill, and it's an entirely different level to do it at an expert level. The same is true of video. As a result, I've focused on learning the art and craft of still photography, and have spent almost no time messing with video.

Now what does this mean for the journalist of today, let alone the ones of tomorrow.Will they become modern day renaissance people who master multiple skills at the expert level or will they end up being jacks of all trades, but masters of none? Let's take a look at the press conference from yesterday. We didn't just have to worry about reporting on the conference, but we also had to take pictures. If we focused on getting some great shots, we ran the risk of missing some key quotes and info. If we just worried about the content, we may not have gotten any good images.

The bottom line is that it's one thing to have the technologies converge, but an entirely different matter to be masters of them all.

-- Steve Caswell
    Simi Valley High School
    Simi Valley, CA