Interview

Minat, a university student at UNSW, discusses the current landscape of journalism for young aspiring journalists. She was inspired to pursue a career in journalism because she enjoyed writing and had access to media at a young age. She believes that the industry allows for individuals to become their own brand and values creativity. However, she acknowledges the challenges journalism faces, particularly with the rise of AI and the ethical concerns surrounding it. She hopes that journalism will find a balance between utilizing AI as a tool and maintaining human connection. In the next five to ten years, she sees journalism evolving in a positive light, especially for younger generations who are familiar with digital media. While there may be concerns from older generations, she believes there will always be a market for traditional forms of media and that cross-collaboration between platforms is exciting. Overall, she appreciates the diversity of opinions and the ability to find like-m Hello there, my name is Rose Jan and this is Newsworthy Podcast. Today we will be interviewing Minat, a university student at UNSW who will be discussing what the landscape of journalism looks like for young aspiring journalists today. My name is Minat and I'm currently a second year media student at UNSW. What inspired you to pursue a career in journalism? What inspired me to pursue a career in journalism? I think I was always a bit of like a writer. I wasn't necessarily very good, but I think I grew up as a single child and I would only really like express my emotions just writing and I think I had a lot of access to media at a young age, which a lot of people in my generation can relate to, but definitely a bit too young to be on social media and writing. But I think even as a kid, just all my thoughts and feelings didn't necessarily need to be shared with the world, but I always wanted to write. And I enjoy writing and I think I'm good with people, but I think what excites me about the current state of the industry is the fact that everyone can kind of become their own brand. I think in other industries, people aren't really happy if you're your own brand. They kind of want you to work for the company and be with the company and look a certain way and be a certain way. And I think within journalism, there are certain roots, especially with where it's going with current technology, where because it's becoming so digitized and because we're in an attention economy, you kind of get more points for like stepping outside of the box. And I feel like for once, this is the industry where I kind of fit in a bit better to go into it. But dream, I guess, would be radio, potentially even video. Yeah. Cool. Amazing. So, can you share any challenges you think journalism is currently facing? Yeah. I think, well, given there's obviously pros with what I just said about everything becoming so digitized, but I think AI, the new technology, of course, is like really scary for people because there is a question of ethics and where this data is coming from. Like, I think at the end of the day, people do want human connection and they want to read human stories and they want to read a real person's stories and opinions. But I do think that's why journalism is kind of going the digitized route and is kind of going the independent route because people want to relate to a person telling them these things rather than a major corporation that may not even employ people in five to ten years. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. Very interesting. I guess you kind of covered this a bit, sort of your concerns about the future of journalism. Yeah. Do you feel like it's going to continue down this route that you've been talking about with AI? Yeah. I would like to hope that this power is beautiful and then that people will speak up on these things because AI hasn't even fully taken over all these jobs in the industry and people are already speaking up. So, I would like to have some faith that we will find an awesome middle ground where we can use AI as a tool rather than a complete reliance on it. But how do you envision the field of journalism evolving in the next five to ten years? Would you see it in a positive light or more of a negative light? I would say positive just for me as a young person growing up in the digital area of media. It's positive because I know how to access it. It's not completely new to you. It's not exactly new to me. Yeah. I think for my bosses or older generations that may be in the workplace in media, I think of course they might be struggling with it, having concerns with it. As to why when it comes to AI, I think it's just more of a question of ethics and reliability. But I think with the way everything's becoming more digitized, people are worrying about things like print going out and radio going out and things like that. But I think there's always going to be a market for these things. It's just more about cross-collaboration with other platforms. But I think it's quite exciting because it does make more... It's more like close communities of people's conversation that we get to see now. I think there's no stone that's kind of unturned. And yeah, obviously everyone needs to cross-check what we read. But at the end of the day, you're always going to be able to find a piece on an opinion that you may share. So I think that's kind of fun because previously, let's say 10, 20 years ago when I was growing up, there's kind of one opinion on the news and you have to roll with it. Yeah. Whereas now I think there's more cross-examination. So it could be a good thing.