Journalism education: Irrelevant, or lacking context?
Journalism students around the world seem to be very similar. Many of them say this:
Personally, I enrolled in a journalism course because I wanted to get into magazines or newspaper column writing — less hard news, more conversational.
That comes from a June 2010 column at MediaShift, written by Australian j-school grad Tammi Ireland. Probably two-thirds of our students at the University of Florida could have written the same thing.
Before you start wringing your hands and sighing about the type of students in journalism programs today, I have a confession to make.
That was me. Thirty years ago I was a student at Penn State, majoring in journalism, and I could not have cared less about politics, hard news, or the public interest. I thought being the editor of the arts and culture section of a big-city newspaper would be a nice job. I hated every second of my public affairs reporting class.
In hindsight, I have felt enormous gratitude for every D I got in my first media writing course, every cruel red comment my professors scrawled in the margins of that rough newsprint paper we typed on with our IBM Selectric typewriters, and every deadly boring school board and city council meeting I sat through, struggling to stay awake.
I learned how to conduct long and short interviews, take rapid and accurate notes, and write on deadline. I learned a lot about media law, the First Amendment, journalism ethics, and accuracy. I’ve been grateful ever since.
Then as now, however, the context was missing. I had no clue that what I was learning would be of value to me in my career, because all my professors were focused on an old-school model of hard news and daily newspaper journalism — which I deemed wholly irrelevant to me.
Back to Tammi Ireland:
During my studies, the possibility of working for online outlets was never even brought up. Instead, students were vaguely told something along the lines of, “Media is changing and you’ll need to know how to shoot and edit videos, write scripts and stories, and layout a page.” What about learning how to utilize social media to find sources to interview? Or learning to write for online? We also could have used a few hints as to the online publications that may want to hire us, how to lay out an online page, or how to edit photos for online use. Looking back, many things were glossed over that really shouldn’t have been.
Here’s what’s sad: If she learned how to write hard news and how to write strong headlines, she HAS learned to write for online. She doesn’t know it because she had no context in her journalism courses at school. If she learned “a bit about InDesign and how to lay out a simple news page” (as she said she did), it’s not that far a stretch to lay out an online page. But she doesn’t realize that.
Amid all the journalism students around the world complaining that no one taught them how to use this or that specific software program, Ireland makes a more pertinent complaint:
I wish more emphasis had been put on all types of media. There was definitely room for it in terms of the course schedule. We did one class where we looked at the Asian online media (mostly China’s), but the relevance of that to Australian’s own online news community was not driven home.
And for all the journalism educators who complain that they cannot teach any new tools and software because they don’t know how to use those tools and software — what is your excuse for not putting context into your teaching? Are you oblivious to the Internet, online news and information, social media, and smartphones? Are you unaware of how journalism skills are used in all kinds of media and all kinds of jobs?
I’m not letting the students off the hook, though. What is wrong with young people who think that the only way to learn anything is to sit in a room with someone talking to them?
I recently met a U.S. TV news student who had gone on a study abroad program for several months in an Asian country. When I asked her about the video she had shot there, she said: “I didn’t have a video camera.”
That makes me want to despair.
Categories: teaching
What I learned in journalism school was AP style. Everything else I learned working at the student newspaper and in a newspaper internship and then on the job. I’m skeptical that anyone can learn journalism in a classroom. You learn by doing it.
I really enjoyed reading this. In fact, I enjoy all your posts.
This in particular struck home for me. I’m currently at a community college in San Francisco, Calif. and I fell into journalism. I was a graphic design major and joined the paper only as a page designer. During my first semester as a designer, I started writing critical reviews for the paper. And I too thought: “I could be an arts and culture writer or editor.” But I’ve learned that I need to be multifaceted. I can’t be a one-trick pony.
My instructors have taught me many valuable skills including: writing headlines, interviews, short hand note taking, etc. These are valuable skills you can use any where including for the web. You don’t need an special skill set to write for online and I’ve met many students who fall into that trap. All you really need are the writing and reporting skills taught in j-schools. Like my newspaper adviser told me: “No matter where or how people get their news if it’s online or not, there will always be a need for journalists.”
Our campus only teaches a few journalism course, but at least our instructors provide context in their teaching. Some of them may be old school types but at least they aren’t reluctant to teach us that we need to adapt to the trends in the media, which includes doing audio and video.
If I can learn this at a community college, what kind of example are other journalism instructors setting when they don’t put context into their teaching? I honestly think it’s to the detriment to the students because we are the next generation of journalists. We may not know everything but the least our instructors can do is impart their knowledge and then it’s up to the students to keep an open mind and listen. Learning isn’t just a one-sided.
[...] Journalism education: Irrelevant, or lacking context? "And for all the journalism educators who complain that they cannot teach any new tools and software because they don’t know how to use those tools and software — what is your excuse for not putting context into your teaching? Are you oblivious to the Internet, online news and information, social media, and smartphones? Are you unaware of how journalism skills are used in all kinds of media and all kinds of jobs?" (tags: journalismeducation) [...]
“And for all the journalism educators who complain that they cannot teach any new tools and software because they don’t know how to use those tools and software — what is your excuse for not putting context into your teaching? Are you oblivious to the Internet, online news and information, social media, and smartphones? Are you unaware of how journalism skills are used in all kinds of media and all kinds of jobs?”
The answer to this last question is both yes and no.
No, journalism educators are not oblivious to the Internet, online news and information, social media and smartphones. Most of us are early adopters of these services and technology. And yes, there is a group of faculty who fear obsolescence as a consequence of a changing industry.
What university faculties have had to cope with, all too often, is the intransigence of older colleagues. Most times, arrested curricular progress can be traced back to older, more influential colleagues, who do not want to learn new software, largely because they still haven’t adopted the older stuff (Photoshop, desktop publishing, etc.)
All too often, departments hired assistant professors, newly graduated from PhD programs to be the “agents of change,” to bring this new technology to the “welcoming arms” of existing faculty. These so-called agents of change came in with bulls-eyes on their chests and backs for older faculty to take aim at, to knock them out of the running for tenure unless they slowed down or abandoned their missions to bring new media technology instruction to the curriculum.
Believe it or not, there are still high education institutions in this country that have yet to adopt new media curriculums. And it’s nothing more than fear of the new that keeps them in the 1990s.
@DW – I teach in a university. I know what you’re talking about.
My challenge was aimed more toward those educators who insist on teaching journalism today exactly as it was taught 40 years ago (or more), when they were students. It is not right. They should be ashamed.
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