CNN used to be just that: a cable news network. Now, it updates its website incessantly, Twitters constantly and texts as prolifically as a teenage girl. With news companies reaching into every available form of media, a new generation of journalists must be prepared to not only report, but also blog, film, record and tweet the news, said lecturer Scott McKenzie, senior vice president of content at The Nielsen Company.

McKenzie taught cherubs at the National High School Institute that today’s journalists can’t focus on one media platform. Stories need to be multidimensional enough to appear in print, online, in video and on  cell phones.

Instructor Stacey Wilkins, who is married to Scott McKenzie, reported from across the world as a broadcast journalist and now teaches journalism at Darien High School in Connecticut. When Wilkins reported for TV, she had about six crew members working alongside her, she said.

“That’s a lot of paychecks,” Wilkins said. “It’s an economic model that doesn’t work anymore.”

The all-platform journalist usually reports alone, communicating the story to readers, watchers, listeners and Twitter followers. But a one-person journalism team has its risks. With an emphasis on doing it all, quality can slip, Wilkins said.

“Not everybody’s gifted in every facet of this business,” Wilkins said.

Annie Park of South Korea said she saw that broadening one’s approach to journalism would make it easier to reach the audience.

“Even if someone is extremely talented in one type of journalism, it’s hard to top the people who are skilled in more than one way of communicating,” Park said.

Like many cherubs, Casey Peeks of California began the program focused on print journalism.

“But now I realize that I have to do everything - take photos, film and edit - to be a successful journalist in the 21st century,” Peeks said.

Sammy Roth of California said he is interested in some parts of journalism but “completely bored” by others.

“But if being an all platform journalist is what it takes, then that’s what I’ll have to do,” Roth said. “It made me think about aspects of reporting that I hadn’t tried before.”

Some news agencies send their reporters out to act as MoJo’s, or Mobile Journalists. McKenzie, formerly the Group Editorial Director of Billboard magazine, said a MoJo can write, film and file stories on the go using a car passenger seat as a news desk.

Though this sort of journalism is new, teenagers are uniquely prepared for it because they see the world through technology, Park said.

“The news that we are exposed to has always been like this,” Park said.

Accuracy, ethics and compelling storytelling remain vital components of journalism even in a changing environment, McKenzie said. So while CNN is reaching its audience with increasingly bite-sized pieces of news, it doesn’t mean that journalists have it easy. Only a cunning wordsmith can shove accurate reporting into a 140 character tweet, McKenzie said.