New skills for tomorrow's reporters

Hopefully you were able to follow a very interesting debate at the latest Westminster Media Forum on the future of news media.

The gist of what I said during the panel on training, standards and citizen journalism is covered by Press Gazette.

But what was interesting from the overall theme of the discussion was that journalism and editorial standards are as crucial in the new world as ever they were in the pre-digital age.

Journalists will require more skills and underpinning knowledge going forward according to nearly every speaker.

My list of requirements was:

• Numeracy to allow better use of freely available data
• Technology to allow journalists to control the means of digital production
• Enterprise skills to help find ways of making journalism pay

As I am currently planning the syllabus for courses for next year, it would be great to hear views about the relative importance of each of these; what there should be less of, perhaps, and what else might be included in the list. (TJ)