Two eye-opening moments at my lecture to about 250 City University MA journalism students yesterday afternoon.
I asked for a show of hands on a simple question: what is your primary news source?
Newspapers? No more than 20 hands went up. Radio? About the same. Television? Maybe 30. Internet? A forest of hands.
Interestingly, many of the people taking the newspaper course - people hoping to get jobs on papers - admitted to not reading printed editions.
Given that part of the lecture was devoted to entrepreneurial journalism, I also asked: how many of you are hoping to get jobs in traditional "big media" outlets?
Virtually the whole room put up their hands. They may be digital natives, but their ambition is to work for others rather than themselves.
They know the risks. They have been told there will be few job openings. They know that they will be expected to work for weeks, maybe months, for nothing.
But they are undaunted. Mainstream media remains a lure.
