Must have IT skills for 21st century Journalists

Technology creates new jobs and improves the way existing job tasks are being done. When technology improves a job, the learning curve to becoming a professional in that field gets stepper especially when it has to do with information technology. Professions have witnessed higher employment of IT skills in the last century an particularly the last decade and a half. This article discusses some IT skills that are a must have for twenty first century journalists.
Journalism can not do without information technology hence the title of this article. The job market is getting more and more competitive and would be even more competitive as time goes on. Individuals who are passionate about their profession would keep up with industry standards and trends. There are traditional skills for journalists but below are a set of must have It skills for journalists of today who want to have an edge over other journalists.

• Own and manage a social media page

It is a good professional practice if as a journalist you own and manage a social media page. Such could be a facebook page, a twitter page, or a pinterest pinboard just to name a few. You could start practising journalism on these pages and learn how to get interactive with users. In a case where you have a high traffic, the page could even be monetised and yield you some recurrent income to boost your wallet.

• Own and manage a blog

In addition to owning and managing a social media page, you could go an extra mile to own a blog. You could do this with absolutely no initial expenditure and minimal technical know how. There are many free blogging platforms on the internet including but not limited to blogger.com, wordpress.com, movabletype.com

 A professional web designer could enhance the blog for more aesthetics but that is not really the point. A lot would be learnt from this blog and as most passionate Journalists do say "they just really want to express themselves" hence the need for such ideal platforms to express
yourself in words, photos, videos and more

• Using CMSs

CMS stands for Content Management System. If you own and manage a blog then you probably have used a CMS. As a journalist, do not limit yourself to blogging CMSses only, go beyond that to learn how to use CMSes that drive websites. As such you stand greater chances of landing a job that has to do with frequently publishing and maintaining online content. Am not saying that you become a web designer but such skills would help you enjoy journalism as it presents these days.