The seven qualities of the 21st century journalist

Joe Grimm of JobsPage.com posted an article today on a talk by Owen Youngman, a Knight Professor of Digital Media Strategy.
At a recent discussion with Northwestern’s National High School Institute journalism students, Youngman talked about the basic qualities he believes all 21st century journalists will need in order to survive. The seven traits he listed as invaluable:

• Accuracy
  
• Self-Awareness
• Numeracy
  
• Appropriateness
  
• Business Savvy
• Audience Awareness
• Adaptability
  

Numeracy is a trait we at the Reynolds Center believe all journalists should have because of how essential it is in a variety of reporting beats. From the article:

"To be accurate, we have to understand and handle numbers better. They are embedded in almost every story we do and they become even more important in an age when so much of what happens online is data driven."

To improve number-literacy, Youngman suggested the book "A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper". We suggest some of our short online tutorials for brushing up on basic math and business information. We also recommend this article for budding business journalists.

Learn more about the seven traits here.