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There is never a simple solution to a complex problem. In his recent column, “Local TV News’ Recruitment Problem Has A Solution,” Sean McLaughlin echoed a lot of what I heard from major group recruiters at the just-concluded Broadcast Education Association conference in April (held concurrently with the NAB Show).
My own desire to improve the knowledge of early-career journalists sent me back to school for a Ph.D. and into journalism classrooms. I have spent the last four years on the journalism faculty at Loyola Marymount, the Jesuit university in Los Angeles. Spending so much time around the 18-25 demographic has taught me a lot about their media habits. And those habits directly affect their career prospects.
College students today do not remember a time when there were no smartphones. Whether Android or iPhone, that little screen is where their media consumption happens. Why would they watch a 30-minute newscast when they can grab individual stories from links? YouTube used to be quite popular, but TikTok has taken over. The reason: TikTok videos are shorter. One LMU student recently explained TikTok as news source better than I could.
I can wax poetic about beating the competition during 19 years as an assignment editor. I can extoll the virtues of shared media moments like 9/11. I can show packages I produced that made a difference in people’s lives. But these hit a target with too few students. There is one group of students that pays attention: those who want to hear about my role as a play-by-play producer.
For too many