Certainly basic writing ability is essential. But is basic newswriting? I’m more interested in the principles that are journalism’s foundation — principles that map to a variety of media forms — than the how-to of writing a story, which I believe can be taught fairly quickly.

Literacy in tomorrow’s culture does mean at least a partial mastery or at least deep understanding of other media forms, meanwhile.

The “personal audio and video” isn’t going to be much good unless the students learn the basics of reporting and writing. One of the dilemmas we all face is that students who have never had to read are nevertheless going to have to learn to write in order to put together the multimedia journalism toward which we’re now rapidly moving.