Three semesters ago when I started my first day at the Alligator, I never thought I’d be typing these words so soon.
I thought that I was going to spend the rest of my college career at this paper I put my heart and soul into — with colleagues and classmates I have come to call some of my best friends. So here it is, my last week at the Alligator, and it couldn’t be more bittersweet.
But instead of telling you what I did and how I’m going to remember it, I’m going to tell you about my future.
I have lost count of how many times I’ve been asked "What’s your major?" during my time at UF, only to have people lecture me that print media is dying, that my degree may be worthless in the years to come. And to those people I say: "Watch me."
Watch me as I learn new ways to tell stories to the audience of the future. Watch me build smartphone and tablet apps that are so user-friendly, a child could read and understand even the densest article. Watch me change the design of news websites and blow paywalls into the history books. Watch me as I reinvigorate print media.
My generation, dubbed "millennials," is special. Some of us have seen life with and without the Internet, and as the world fights to climb the technology curve, it is my generation that is going to figure out how to use this technology in ways we have never seen before. These millennial journalists are going to reimagine what it means to tell stories in ways you’d never believe, and I want you doubters to watch me as I do it.
The content may be different, the way we tell stories may change and how we distribute them may evolve, but the core of journalism will remain the same.
Tampa Bay Times writer Michael Kruse said in a 2012 TEDxTampa Bay talk that people always tell him that they "just want the facts, just the facts, please, just the facts."
"And these people are liars," he said, "because nobody wants just the facts. It’s not who we are."
Why are they liars? Humans have been telling each other stories since the earliest cave paintings 40,000 years ago. Our world revolves around stories. If clickbait relays any message besides a need for web page views, it’s that people like to see what happens when a man comes face-to-face with a great white shark after jumping off a cliff. Does he survive? I don’t know. Let’s find out.
Kruse went on to say that you can argue, but there have only ever been a handful of stories: rags to riches, the quest, voyage and return, overcoming the monster, etc.
"These are how we’ve communicated with each other," Kruse said. "These are the stories we told ourselves and each other before we could write them down."
As I gaze into the future, I see a world full of stories waiting to be told, and there is no better constitutionally protected profession than journalism.
If you have a significant other, you know the importance of good communication. It only takes one missing comma to screw up the way a message is received. Communication matters, and employers today are looking for someone who not only can write complete sentences, but one who can do it with poise and great form.
I’m not just talking about newspapers, either. There are so many platforms where writers can tell stories, and as Michael Kruse points out, the future of stories is stories.
"We think in stories, and we always have," he said. "And so now, is this going to change, right now in our lifetime in 2012 because of Twitter, because of Facebook, Youtube, the Internet?"
If you say anything but no, I will tell you right now that you’re wrong. Watch me, and I’ll show you.
[Steven Katona is the Alligator’s Managing Editor for Print. A version of this column ran on page 6 on 8/5/2014 under the headline "Student Senate updates statutes, deletes positions"]
