Last november I taught two classes of Medill Journalism students a seminar on writing for the Web and was shocked when I polled them during the lecture. None of hem knew what Twitter was.
All of them were on Facebook though. Only about three had ever heard of RSS.

So, I proceeded to demonstrate in their 50 minute class how to use twitter, utterz, flickr and a few others to gather facts, interview people and publish and distribute them in real time. Before the class ended we published photos, reports, polling graphics and a podcast.

If you are going to be successful as a journalist entering the workforce, you have to have experience in mastering the new tools and a deep understanding of how the wired present will extend into the future. As a professional journalist you go where your audience is and where the stories are. The core journalism doesn’t change.