#Journalism

Anyone tuned into Twitter last weekend might have caught a glimpse of what was going on at the University of Georgia.

The board of directors at The Red and Black, the university's independent student newspaper, made a decision to promote the editorial adviser to editorial director, requiring the content to undergo prior review before sending an issue to print. It was one of several changes that caused the staff of student editors to walk out and take to social media under the name "The Red and Dead."

The extent of what happened in the short time following was unforeseen. Journalists across the country were eying their Twitter feeds to see the situation unfold, and top media organizations were offering their support to the staff. Within only a few days of the walkout and uproar, full control was restored to the student editorial board.

The power of student journalists is constantly underestimated. In fact, those involved are part of a generation that many consider to be dragging journalism down. But this group not only managed to take back a newspaper, but they took it back from the kingpins of the career, the ones who are supposed to be the driving force in the industry.

And they also may have helped take back journalism in general.

Social media has been regarded in the past as a hindrance to the field for putting too much emphasis on short-form versus long-form and online versus print. But platforms like Twitter have opened more doors than they have supposedly closed and given everyone the opportunity to report the news as it occurs.

For example, in just the last few years, riots in London, protests in Egypt, and terrorist attacks in India were reported and developed through social media. Even the death of Whitney Houston earlier this year was reported on Twitter before media organizations touched the story.

Media is evolving, and the people who are involved need to evolve with it. Any news organization with a prominent social media presence can vouch for its usefulness, and many will even hire positions just for the purpose of managing social media and the web. The very least it can do is expand your audience - imagine the possibilities when you use it to its full potential.

But whether or not new media is looked at with disdain by old school, textbook-and-typewriter journalists, the editorial board at The Red and Black proved that it doesn't matter how much you're taught if you don't apply it to the best of your ability.

What this staff had to use was 140 characters at a time and a potential audience of over 500 million. So when they walked out for fear they wouldn't have a voice, they found somewhere else to talk - and quite loudly, at that.

Email: editorial@ubspectrum.com