Print is dying but journalism will live on - right?

For richer or poorer, this is the career path that I'm engaged to. I'd like to think that it's going to be all right and there will be a job waiting for me when I graduate. I thought that because I fancied myself as a skilled writer, but we're all good writers. I assume that's why we've chosen this path.

This first two chapters of “The Art of Editing” were somewhat of a review for me. The idea that today's journalism school student needs to have a wider range of skill sets is, sadly, old news to me. At least I'm learning this now and not after I've graduated. I have a little time to sharpen some of my duller skills.

I feel that given an appropriate word budget, I can capture the essence of the event that I was assigned. I try to make my story easy to read and this doesn't give me much difficulty. However, after I've written the story, I have to spend another 30 minutes trying to come up with catchy title that Jordan is going to axe for a better one that took him two minutes to create. I'm a hard one to frustrate, though. I keep trying. I get some strange satisfaction when Jordan says, “I liked it, but it's probably a little inappropriate.”

This class will, no doubt, sharpen my headline writing skill. I'd also like to be able to edit on-the-fly or in my mind before writing, like we discussed in class. The thought of being able to write 12 inches of copy in an hour seems like science fiction to me at this point.