Faculty Profile: Dan Sinker Preps Journalists for the Digital Age by Anne Pilon, Journalism

photo by: Rachel Morris

The entire journalism industry is changing, and Dan Sinker knows it. Instead of panicking or frantically searching for a career change like many in the industry, he’s actually excited about the transition.

“There are so many amazing opportunities out there right now,” said Sinker. “So many people get stuck looking on journalismjobs.org or only looking for jobs at the Tribune and the Sun Times, but there are almost an infinite number of possibilities out there right now that are just fantastic. You get the chance to write and edit just about anything you want to.”

All these other opportunities are highlighted in two of Sinker’s journalism courses: Online Journalism and Mobile Journalism.

“In Online Journalism my hope is that students will understand how the playing field has changed in the past five years and learn how to think about how to communicate to an audience and how the audience has changed,” said Sinker. “In Mobile Journalism we really look at how the landscape is right now, where things are going, and how we need to start thinking. As people involved in media, we really need to look more at the world of mobile technology as a way to communicate with people.”

Sinker believes that the skills learned in each of these classes are important for anyone going into the communications field.

Sinker explained how important it is for everyone to understand the world we live in, especially journalists.

“You have to know at least the basic terminology and how most people interact with information these days," he said. "These classes are designed around that idea, and I feel that the best way to learn is by doing, so I sort of throw you into the deep side of the pool, and it gives you the chance to learn some entrepreneurial skills.”

Sinker knows all about being an entrepreneur. When he was a sophomore in college, he started Punk Planet, a magazine that eventually published 80 issues and won several awards.

Now he’s starting another project called Cell Stories, a service that brings short stories to cell phones and mobile devices.

“Cell stories is nowhere near the scale of Punk Planet – it’s just me,” said Sinker. “I started thinking about how, as mobile technology becomes adopted as more than just a way to call home, how does that change the relationship to the type of content we might engage with on it? I think cell phones are a great way to get information. They go anywhere and they’re a lot more convenient than desktop computers.”

It is this type of innovation and passion that Sinker hopes his students will pick up on from taking his online and mobile classes.

“I would love to be a student right now,” he said. “When I was in school and when people were in school ten years before me, there were basically three ways you could use your journalism degree. You could work for a newspaper, a magazine, or some kind of broadcast outlet. Now there are so many more possibilities, and I think it would be a shame for people to not take advantage of that.”

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