I had the privilege of sitting with two aspiring journalists at a scholarship breakfast this week.

I told them that I was jealous - what a wonderful time this is to be entering the world of journalism.

While it’s a little frightening, too, because of the rapidly changing technology, there’s no better time to be a journalist in the history of mankind.

The horizons are so limitless and the need for good journalism is so critical. We seem to be at a watershed moment in the history of communication. Technology is re-writing the script for how people obtain information.

Yet in this age of information we more than ever need skilled people who can help us sort through the data overload.

Never before has a journalist been equipped with so many tools for pursuing truth and telling stories - the key ingredients of journalism.

The reporter of the future will be able to blend words and pictures seamlessly in multi-media presentations that we can only imagine today.

If I work until I’m 65, my career will have spanned the years from 1974 to 2017. It’s been a great time to be a journalist, starting in the Watergate era when color pictures were just beginning to find their way into newspapers and continuing through the launch of a new millenium and the Internet.

But the next 45 years? Wow! Life is changing so fast, technology is making so much possible, I can’t begin to get my head around the possibilities.

And I can’t think of a better career to start today.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 21st, 2007 at 2:23 pm and is filed under Other. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.