It made a nice change to hear from some multimedia journalists working at the frontline of the industry in the training session at the Society of Editors (SoE) conference today.

Ruth Barnett, a multimedia producer for Sky News, described how the industry had changed between starting her journalism training in 2005 and graduating a year later.

“I’ve been able to adapt to working in a multimedia, multi-platform way because this is precisely how I consume news myself,” she explained.

“I understand that not everyone in a newsroom can work in this way – I need experience of other journalists in the newsroom.”

Fellow panellist and multimedia reporter with the Western Morning News, Jane Omara, was initially trained as a web journalist and has been given training by her employer in more traditional skills such as media law and shorthand.

She explained to Journalism.co.uk that there was still ‘room for maneouvre’ for trainees when it came to learning new digital skills:

[audio:http://www.journalism.co.uk/sounds/janeomara.mp3]