The world of journalism.

By: Sarah Keller

At our Simpsonian meeting last Monday a Simpson Alumni, who is now an editor for The Record Herold and Indianola Tribune, came and spoke to our class about his job and the world of journalism.

Something that he said which really stuck out in my mind was that today's papers are about 40 percent news and 60 percent advertisements. It used to be that news papers were about 50/50 or even 60 percent news and 40 percent advertisements. This statement just reinforces what we have talked about in class about the subject of a reader only giving a few seconds to an article, things in today's fast past society need to to be short and informative. One web site showing support of the statement that newspapers have more advertisements than news is the popular site slate.com, where there are advertisements on the top and the side margins

Another thing that the editor spoke of that I really enjoyed was regarding the subject of jobs in journalism. Many people in the classes have blogged about how it is impossible to get a job in journalism in the world today. However, according to the editor who spoke to our class last week, when his newspaper is looking for people to hire, they look for people with experience; but they also look for new young talented adults who can write stories well and fast. This could be any number of students in our class.

The last thing that the editor spoke of that I would like to share is about the importance of the inverted pyramid, which we have been discussing in class. He said that it is necessary to use the inverted pyramid about 90 percent of the time, and it is an important thing to know in the field of journalism.

It disappoints me a little bit that news in today's society has to be very short and to the point, and that there is more room for advertisements than news itself. But that is what society wants today, and I believe that journalist are doing a great job of meeting these requirements.