J-Days Speaker: Future Of News In Students' Hands
By Meagan Abell
Lemke Ledger Staff
“Journalism is not dying; it is changing,” said Phillip Bruce, a general manager at National Public Radio and the guest speaker for the Roy Reed Lecture Series at the 20009 J-Days.
Phillip Bruce of NPR told
students during the Roy
Reed
Lecture Series that
despite many changes,
journalism will survive. —
Carolyn Treloar/
Ledger
Bruce, a Famington native, has been involved in journalism since he was in grade school. He began helping his father in the 1950s distribute The Northwest Arkansas Times in his hometown, just outside of Fayetteville. In junior high he founded and published his own newsletter for the community about school board and town meetings.
At the lecture, attended by faculty, students and other interested spectators, Bruce shared stories of his journey from Farmington to Los Angeles, where he is the deputy general manager of NPR at the western broadcast headquarters. Bruce told of time spent with Reed, a longtime journalist and former UA professor to whom Bruce attributes much of what he learned about his craft, and also recalled past experiences with UA Prof. Larry Foley and University Relations Manager of News Steve Voohries.
“It’s a shame that students today have to focus on the business side of journalism instead of focusing on the trade as whole,” said Bruce about the current atmosphere of change in the field of news. Today, Bruce said, students must focus on the money and the economic circumstances instead of reporting news, whereas the students of his era did not have to face such challenges.
Bruce said that while the way news is gathered and reported is changing, journalism isn't going away. Jobs will be available, he said, but with the business continuing to transition into the digital age, technologically savvy is a must.
“It is up to the students to create the future of journalism,” Bruce said.