A week ago we couldn’t have had a more enjoyable evening.

Invited by the Temple University’s School of Media and Communication, the current leadership of AL DÍA Newsroom had the privilege to speak to almost 100 students currently pursuing degrees and careers in our vastly transformed profession.

The one in which the old title of “journalist” alone seems to be increasingly inadequate.

Like in the medical profession, where a general M.D. diploma is now too basic and insufficient, compared to the myriad of specializations created in Medicine by advanced science and technology, our former craft of “writing well” has been mightily challenged by the urgent need to innovate and become excellent in vastly expanded new platforms for storytelling, all created by the inevitable advancement of technology: Video, Podcast, Data, Social Media, to name the most obvious.

Our former craft of “writing well” has been mightily challenged by the urgent need to innovate and become excellent in vastly expanded new narrative platforms created by advanced technology.

Not to mention the new challenges and opportunities in Media Entrepreneurship, Media Business Development, Media Management and Leadership. Even more importantly for journalists, the new responsibility of Media Ownership.

We remain perplexed but excited about the possibilities.

New specialties and areas of expertise run the whole gamut from Audiovisual Journalism to Entrepreneurial Journalism, from Solution Journalism to Data Journalism.

From advanced storytelling —mixing sound, audiovisual content, photography and data, added to the traditional printed word— to the complex Code Writing and Programming.

From the basics of headline writing in online journalism to the equally complex of headline making in marketing.

Remember the famous Arianna Huffington, who created a media from her last name taken from her divorced husband, and now retired as a former news media mogul millionaire. 

We love Arianna, but this is is the way we bluntly put it to Temple students this past week during the “evening with AL DIA” in the Annenberg Hall of Temple Campus in North Philadephia:

“The Writing is in the Wall!” “Yes, you can do it!” “But you have to always pay the price, either before your success or after your failure…”

Reminded me of the first time I went all the way down to El Paso, Texas, almost 10 years ago, specifically to interview students of journalism in one of the most multicultural campuses you can find in America.

Thanks to professor Zita Arocha, and University President Diana Natalicio, AL DÍA was invited to the UTEP (University of Texas in El Paso), to recruit the first generation of bilingual journalists we transplanted from Texas to Pennsylvania to help document the new reality of the Latino experience in Philadelphia.

Today, I trust we are not forced to go that far to find this unique talent. 

Dean David Boardman, head of the School of Media and Communication at Temple, told me when we first met around three years ago, shortly after his arrival from Seattle, Washington, that he intended to turn Temple’s School into the most multicultural school of news media in the country.

I thought he was joking.

But he wasn’t. I was so impressed with the diverse crowd we were able to meet on Tuesday, Oct. 4, interested in career opportunities at AL DÍA, through our apprenticeship and fellowship programs, or the senior positions opened in the team for the most advanced candidates.

Thank you, Temple! ‘Muchas gracias,’ Dean Boardman!