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.

A future personalized

Fast Company recently posted an article describing what IDEO, a global design consultancy used by Fortune 500 companies, believes journalism will look like after its traditional business models have collapsed.
The article criticizes news organizations for their loss of credibility, clunky and inefficient distribution systems and for marginalizing consumers in the dialogue of how to save journalism.
Yet IDEO still has hope for the future of news. It forsees a future of highly-contextualized hyper-local citizen journalism that contributes to a dense web of collective knowledge thriving on immediacy. From the story:

In these scenarios, we see that information has become even more personalized and hyperlocal--and, paradoxically, more communal, participatory, and global. Journalism is more like having a conversation. People speak with unique voices, take ownership of content, and establish credibility, which in turn enables strong communities in which news can thrive.

View the story here. See discussion about the future of journalism here.

What do you think of IDEO's vision of journalism's future? Comment and tell us.