Comments on: The Future of Journalism Education

By: JS

JS — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:16:28 +0000

I like this article. I think more schools should be thinking like this. I am a student majoring in journalism and I hate the “track” system. At first I thought I wanted to do news print then I changed my mind to magazine, then I even considered changing again to advertising or PR. I also took a class on photojournalism. I like all the areas and think that students shouldn’t have to choose because all of these areas are shifting together, like mentioned in the article. One more change I’d like to see in teaching journalism is, to start with the basics and build our way up. In my classes I feel like the professor would give us a lecture on a subject, then tell us ok go write a story. Then after writing the story they would tell us what we did wrong. I think we should know all the basics and work our way up to writing a well thought-out, researched story.

By: AndreaGenevieve

AndreaGenevieve — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 06:00:04 +0000

Dan,

Many many great thoughts on this post, you have plenty of great ideas for the future of journalism education. I especially like your ideas about getting rid of the common “track” or “major/minor” within higher education.
It makes sense to have a major, but not so much a specific concentration. I run a program out of GWU called the Semester in Washington Journalism Program (www.siwjournalism.org) We teach students how to take many communication skills into their internships and back to their home schools. Instead of taking a whole course on say video production, students explore multiple aspects of media at GWU while they are here for the semester. Each week we focus on a new set of skills, so its as if they are taking many mini media seminars, to learn how to become well rounded journalists.
Again great ideas from a superior J School. ASU is always at the front of J school Innovation I like your thoughts. I look forward to reading more!
Best Andrea

By: Donica Mensing

Donica Mensing — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:22:15 +0000

Thanks for this excellent post — many great ideas. One of the questions I struggle with as we think about our j-school curriculum is your first assumption: that we should be great liberal arts programs. I believe this as an ideology, but in practice I worry that it’s not accomplishing what we think it is:

1. Our students take courses in many disciplines but few understand how to connect the ideas they’re building into any coherent understanding of the world. They aren’t building broad knowledge as much as collecting credits from random courses. Journalism courses that worked to build those connections make might a huge difference. For example, they can take science and math courses, but have trouble translating that knowledge into explaining science or statistics well in stories. What are we missing?

2. If journalism is moving from mass distribution to niche publishing (as I think it is), then our students would be better served by going deep rather than broad. Perhaps this belongs in graduate school, but if our students want to create, or work for, community niche sites, they would do well to study communities and their dynamics deeply. If they want to do journalism for environmental/medical/art/health/business organizations, they would do better to become deeply familiar with those disciplines than superficially acquainted with many. Perhaps…

Thanks for sharing these ideas.

By: Dan Gillmor

Dan Gillmor — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 00:55:53 +0000

Roy, this is a fine suggestion. I’ll add it to the updated version of this post when I get all of the best suggestions together.

By: Roy Harris

Roy Harris — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:46:48 +0000

Great ideas. If I were a chancellor you’d be my next journalism dean. One suggestion, though, involves including journalism history in a relevant way. A bit self-serving, perhaps, since I’ve written a history of the public-service Pulitzers. But I find in current curricula too little appreciation of what great journalism has done for society. To paraphrase Santayana just a bit: “Those who cannot remember th past have no way in hell of repeating it.”

By: Diane Burley

Diane Burley — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 13:30:17 +0000

Some schools did heed this advice — yet they don’t have the pedigree of Columbia. Editors gave tests on how to recast an article — and never tested on how to interpret data.

A good journalist needs to be part ethnographer (do any know what that means), a diviner of secondary research, a psychologist to pull out 1st hand information, an acute understanding of virtual any subject, a keen business sense, ability to read a P&L like a CFO, the logic of a lawyer — and the ethics of a theologian.

If there isn’t a journo job waiting for them — these would be the skills i would want in a great CEO.

By: Dan Gillmor

Dan Gillmor — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 01:25:38 +0000

Phelps, I don’t think they have a link for the conference. It’s basically a gathering of the Knight-Carnegie News21 schools, I gather.

By: Phelps Hawkins

Phelps Hawkins — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 18:49:18 +0000

We’re seriously approaching a broad reworking of our JMC curriculum for a unique student group from 30+ former Communist countries. I’m having trouble finding this one-day conference on “journalism education” that you reference above. Can you help me find a website for this conference? I couldn’t find reference to it on either Paley Center or Carnegie websites.

Many thanks,

Phelps S. Hawkins
Assistant Professor

By: Dan Gillmor

Dan Gillmor — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:26:33 +0000

Alisha,

I’m not saying we have to show people how to consume media. We don’t. But I do think we can help people learn how to use media better. There’s a big difference.

Love the wallet exercise…

By: Dan Gillmor

Dan Gillmor — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:25:05 +0000

Chris, I will do that elaboration. My understanding is that accredited programs require students to study more widely than just journalism. I love the idea of language training, too.