As the only person at my little journalism center teaching anything related to the Internet, life can get lonely and it's easy to feel isolated since my colleagues (who are wonderful people otherwise) have little exposure to most of what I'm trying to teach and there is nobody else on campus to ask for advice on what works and what doesn't in the context of a hands-on online journalism skills class. Plus there is no standard curriculum or agreement about how to teach online journalism anyway, because the field is still very new and technology changes so fast. For this reason, I found attending the First World Journalism Education Congress especially useful, if not therapeutic. (Although I'm sorry, somebody has got to help them do a better website next time...)
Despite the conference's 1990's-style web presence which did not bode well, I was able to network with some of the more respected and innovative teachers in the field of online journalism, like Guy Berger of South Africa (a former political prisoner, journalist, and more recently the force behind Highway Africa), Rosental Alves of UT Austin (a transplanted Brazilian and force behind the International Symposium of Online Journalism), Jonathan Hewett of London's City University, Pascal Guenee of l'Institut Pratique de Journalisme, Elen Hume, founder of the innovative New England Ethnic Newswire, and many others. We exchanged some really interesting ideas which will help me a lot in future semesters. Talking to them also helped me come to terms with the fact that experimentation and uncertainty are simply going to be a fact of life for any online journalism instructor who is trying to prepare students for the future of journalism instead of what journalism used to be back in our various heydays - or even last year.
In a small group session to discuss reforming the curriculum for the digital age, and later on his blog, Guy pointed out the main problem we face: "What many j-teachers don’t realise is that their current work amounts in effect to imparting media history."
The main thing that many journalism schools have problems dealing with is that technology has caused professionals to lose control over the means of media production. The public at large can now participate in journalism. People who are not professional journalists working full-time for news organizations will continue to produce media and commit acts of journalism in growing numbers no matter what "we" think of the quality or reliability of their work, and no matter whether "we" think that what "they" are doing is a "good thing" or not. Amateurs are competing with professionals for attention. That doesn't mean there won't be a role and a value for professionals. Recent surveys discussed at the World Editors Forum indicate that the public will probably continue to value many things about professional journalism (as long as we don't disintegrate into completely valuless pablum about pseudo-starlets, which is also possible). But no matter what, non-professional journalism is going to be a fact of life in the media ecosystem from now on and we'd better get used to it.
I've always been pretty open about the fact that I came to my teaching position with a history of strong skepticism about the utility of j-schools in the first place. I came away from the WJEC believing that journalism education actually can have a useful role to play, but we need to re-configure our mandate to be more consistent with today's realities.
First, I assume we agree that the ultimate point of journalism is to serve and inform the public discourse so that citizens can make informed decisions about how to live their lives, to spend their money, and to determine who can be trusted to represent their interests.
(If you think the purpose of journalism is to keep a government in power or maximize profit for shareholders, you won't agree with anything I have to say. Don't waste your time. Bye!)
If we agree with the above purpose of journalism, we should also assume that the goal of journalism education should be to help improve the skills, knowledge, and ethical standards of all people who are participating in the journalistic process and working to inform the public discourse. In fact, the conference issued a Declaration of Principles of Journalism Education, in which the preamble states:
"Journalism should serve the public in many important ways, but it can only do so if its practitioners have mastered an increasingly complex body of knowledge and specialized skills. Above all, to be a responsible journalist must involve an informed ethical commitment to the public. This commitment must include an understanding of and deep appreciation for the role that journalism plays in the formation, enhancement and perpetuation of an informed society."
What neither the declaration nor the conference fully acknowledged was the extent to which, in this day and age, "practitioners" of journalism are not only professional journalists but potentially all other members of the public.
The principles take a step in this direction with item number five: "Journalism educators have an important outreach mission to promote media literacy among the public generally and within their academic institutions specifically." But that does not go far enough in embracing public media literacy as what I believe should be an absolutely core mission. Without broadening our mandate to include all people who may potentially create media and commit journalism, we can continue to generate jobs for ourselves and (fingers crossed) an acceptable number of students. But I don't see how we will continue to serve the public interest very well. We will be neglecting an important opportunity to help strengthen and improve our democracies - rather than watch them be eroded away (or in some countries, denied us entirely) thanks to apathy, infotainment, propaganda, herd mentalities, and spin.
As Jay Rosen wrote back in 2005, journalism is no longer just a "profession;" it has also become a "practice" in which we all participate. Blog-father Dave Winer has argued that we should stop trying to teach journalism as a specialized trade at all, and instead teach it as a required course for everybody. "It's too late to be training new journalists in the classic mode," he wrote. "Instead, journalism should become a required course, one or two semesters for every graduate."
Dave and I differ about whether professional journalists have a future at all - I think they still do as long as they're willing to evolve and adapt - but I agree with him that basic journalism concepts, skills, and media literacy need to be a core competency for all educated citizens.
I would also argue that introducing these skills and concepts at the college level is way too late - given that many kids now are blogging from the middle of primary school onwards. Media literacy and basic concepts of journalism - along with the rights and responsibilities (like do no harm) that go along with media creation - really need to start being introduced in grade school. Journalism schools could play a major role in helping to shape a new media literacy curriculum - and in teaching primary and high school teachers about journalism and how to teach it themselves.
If J-schools were looking for a good raison d'etre, that seems like a real one to me. But it requires a lot of work - well outside everybody's present comfort zones.
Are we up for it? Do we have the cojones? Or are we really just in this for the tenure track, regular schedules and long summer holidays?
I absolutely agree that the teaching of journalism has to take into consideration the changing world of information gathering that the Internet provides, but I am not surprised that the bricks and mortar educational institutions are having problems knowing what to teach. We had the same problem when I took a journalism degree 30 years ago.
I am glad you are working on this and happy to know the others you mentioned are as well.
A few thoughts.
The reader needs to be educated as much as the writer - about how to judge a source, a story, for reliability.
Part of the response of the journalism industry to the shifting reality of the on-line world needs to be an examination of the functions of journalism - not only the business of selling celeb news, but in actually providing information that is useful in helping society deal with its problems.
News should no longer just be about quoting the two sides of an argument (balanced fair comment) but actually trying to get us all closer to what we know or do not know about the problems facing us. As Al Gore's book points out (claims?), there is 95% agreement about the reality of global warming in the scientific community, and 50% disagreement about it in the press. (pardon me if the quote is not exact.) If the news is defined as a man biting a dog, does that bias coverage to generate confusion? If so, whether you are an on-line journalist, blogger or other, how do you guide your writing to promote understanding rather than simply prolong controversy? And even if that appears to be anti-commercial in the current environment, given the Wikipedian capabilities of the current on-line world, is it possible for us to create vehicles of aggregate checked knowledge that will help us pass on reliable education rapidly and in such a way that it provides a powerful tool for societies to resolve their problems? And does so in a way that competes commercially with the celeb babble that increasingly dominates mass media.
Critical to understanding and using on-line journalism is an understanding of the powerful tools of hyper-links which can put at the readers instant retrieval all the background information needed to catch up with whatever topic is being written about.
I totally agree with your comment that media literacy is critical as a part of education, not only caveat emptor smarts for on line consumption of information but also ethical questions in creating any media.
I very much like the language of the preamble to the Declaration of Prinicples quoted above, except that I take exception to the initial idea that a journalist "must master a complex body of knowledge" to be able to serve society in many ways. Some will need to master the knowledge, and it is good that a body of knowledge is being formed, but the commitment to be responsible is the key. It is a difficult sell in a commercial world, but it is critical that this sense of responsibility be taught, learned and soaked into the bone of anyone who calls themselves a journalist.
You said there is no standard curriculum for teaching on-line journalism. That seems like a good thing, as it is evolving by the minute. But it seems to me, a critical part of the process must be to look at, read, analyze and discuss every thing that can be seen on-line as news or effecting the news, from candidates on YouTube to the blogosphere to the increasing integration of front-line news organizations breaking news and their archives. It seems like an exciting topic to be teaching at an exciting time. I look forward to following your progress and if you feel isolated, feel free to drop me a line. If nothing else, I will reassure you that you are doing good necessary work.
Posted by: Chuck | July 01, 2007 at 02:09 AM
"the backlash"
Posted by: patrick yen | July 18, 2007 at 05:44 PM