Who Me?
My name is Michael McQuillan and I write and maintain this blog for Simon Fraser University’s Continuing Studies Department. I spent 20 years as a reporter and editor before changing professions and moving into public relations/communications. In my first job as a cub reporter, the technology of the day was the monsterous Linotype typesetting machine, which occupied a large corner of the newsroom. Today we can produce an entire newspaper issue with one computer and broadcast our news stories and photographs in mere moments using Twitter, Facebook and other social media.
I’ve also seen a change in business models for news media outlets, especially newspapers. As a result many papers have gone under in the last five years and countless journalists have lost their jobs during these tumultuous times. How newspapers will remake themselves is up for debate. But what is certain is they must embrace new technology and methods of communicating.
It also seems obvious that any journalist who wants to flourish today must be digitally literate, social media savvy, multi-media equipped and technically competent. The goal of the SFU New Media Journalism Certificate program is to provide journalists with those traits. I’m an instructor in the program and I’m looking forward to working with students.
Feel free to comment on my blog entrees. I welcome the feedback. You can also email me at wired (at) sfu (dot) ca.