Search

On June 4 this year, Howard Finberg of the Poynter Institute gave a speech called "The Future of Journalism Education" at the European Journalism Centre's twentieth anniversary celebration in Maastricht, the Netherlands, in which he presented the results of a survey of journalists and journalism professors about the value of a journalism degree, among other things. Finberg spent the rest of his speech bragging about Poynter's News University, encouraging journalism schools to offer a lot of News University-type online courses, saying that "maybe a journalism degree isn't the endgame" (after earlier having said "I do NOT suggest that this survey says that a degree is unimportant"), suggesting that journalism and mass communication (J&MC) programs do "practical research, not just academic exploration," and pushing a combination of student work portfolios that go way beyond "just traditional clips or tapes" and "digital badges that represent skills or other competences" of students in addition to the uber-portfolio and the course transcript. Finberg packed quite a bit into this Maastricht speech, and it requires more than a little bit of unpacking, which the author does in this article without defending the status quo. In sum, the author points out that a sincere goal of true excellence, which would involve, among other things, all journalism students producing News21-like work, would lead to meeting Carnegie Corp.'s three journalism "needs."

Standard media coverage of higher education hasn't changed that much since the 1940s, and it doesn't serve the core functions of higher education well. US news media could not maintain their anti-intellectualism without widespread public acceptance, but schools of journalism must accept their share of the blame. US journalists historically came from bluecollar backgrounds; nineteenth-century newspapers were staffed by one or two college-graduate editors and high school-dropout reporters. The percentage of US journalists with college degrees did not reach 50 percent until about 1970 but has kept increasing since then. Today, close to 100 percent of journalists have bachelors' degrees and well over 50 percent have journalism degrees. Journalism schools thus had a historic opportunity to become a pro-intellectual force in US mass media. They largely failed. Recently, journalism-school curricula have become more anti-intellectual, as courses in media history, media management, and public-affairs reporting have been marginalized or eliminated. In their place have come an explosion of courses, majors, and endowed chairs in sports journalism, sports information and public relations, sports marketing, and even sports management; in e-commerce; and in web design, animation, computer games, and other fields that involve both communication and technology. If US higher education's future is dependent on mass public opinion, that mass public opinion is largely dependent on the news media, and journalism is a counterintuitively anti-intellectual profession staffed primarily by graduates of anti-intellectual journalism schools, it is no surprise that public funding of higher education was declining "before" the Great Recession, that graduation rates barely creep up, and that what members of the general public know about universities is usually limited to their semiprofessional sports programs (which are incorrectly assumed to be profitable). The author contends that US colleges and universities, including their journalism schools, need to improve their products: their curricula and their graduates.

Provides guidelines for high school editors to help improve their paper's operation, image, and content, including devising a style manual and covering school board, faculty, parent, and administration activities. (HTH)

The author explores reasons why many or most journalism students outside top journalism programs in the U.S. might be plagued by more than simply lacking a total commitment to journalism careers and/or strong effort in every course in their majors. Topics discussed include need of U.S. undergraduate journalism programs to substantially increase the average quality of its students; and responsibilities of journalism/mass communication (JMC) educators.

The author reflects on the value of learning sports journalism. She cites her experience in being a journalist and teaching journalism at several universities in which she learned the disproportionate interest of students in learning different subjects in the field. The author also mentions the factors why several students were reluctant to learn about sports journalism and suggests tips on how to bring back passion in the field.

The article discusses the NewsU online journalism courses of Poynter Institute in Saint Petersburg, Florida. It notes that the said institute has created several self-directed journalism education modules such as "Cleaning Your Copy: Grammar, Style and More," "The Be a Reporter Game," and "The Interview." According to the institute, 61 percent of the users stated that the modules helped them in getting better in their jobs or in classes. During the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) convention session on August 11, 2011, Howard Finberg of Poynter Institute explained the launching of the institute's J101 to leverage self-directed modules while adding online group seminars.

The author offers opinions on the teaching of journalism in universities and colleges. It is argued that employment requirements in the mass media industry for college graduates who have journalism or mass communication degrees have expanded to include skills such as entrepreneurship which are not part of traditional journalism curricula, and which in the author's view are skills which cannot easily be taught through formal academics. It is stated that very few college students possess entrepreneurial skills, even those in business education.

The author offers opinions on U.S. higher eduction. The book "Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses," by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, is said to illustrate the lack of instruction in critical thinking and written communication essential for the study and teaching of communication and journalism. The University of Colorado at Boulder Board of Regents is strongly criticized for its April, 2011 decision to close the university's school of journalism, and it is argued that the regents offered no clear rationale for their decision.

The author offers opinions on the study and teaching of journalism. A need is seen for teaching journalism students in aspects of entrepreneurship related to freelance journalism. A program in so-called "entrepreneurial journalism" instituted by the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate School of Journalism is cited as an example of an effort to do so. The curricula and aims and objectives of that program are considered in detail, particularly a course on New Business Models for News taught by Professor Jeff Jarvis, a noted online journalism advocate.

The author offers opinions on the study and teaching of journalism and mass communication at universities and colleges in the European Union (EU). Efforts to standardize the standards and curricula for the study of these two disciplines are said to have made more progress than for most of EU higher education. Research on both journalism students and among journalism employers as to what aspects of the journalism curricula are most valuable is cited as an indication there is a broad agreement on several of the most important elements of journalism and mass communication education.

This article presents the editor's views on educators in the fields of journalism and mass communication. Professors of journalism and mass communication face issues with changing technology and the study of media history related to topics like newspapers, telephones, television and radio broadcasting, and the internet. These teachers must address changes in mass media without succumbing to feelings of fatalism and hysteria. The article discusses how they can teach history while accepting new media such as the microblogging website Twitter and online newspapers. Information is also provided on changing definitions of journalists and journalism.

The article discusses research which has evaluated the target audiences of media materials such as newspapers, journalism text books and magazines. In the article the author offers his opinions on the reasons behind target marketing in media materials, on the web site Journalist's Resource, developed by the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education and on several books including "Strategic Newspaper Management," by Conrad Fink, that he has used to teach students in his journalism classes.

In this article the editor comments on the admissions criteria for master's degree programs in journalism and mass communication as outlined in the book "Journalism Education at the Master's Level," by Michael Ryan, published in 1980. He notes that Ryan found the most important admissions requirements to include undergraduate grade point average (GPA), letters of recommendation, and statements of goals. He expresses concern that master's degree programs rely on the same admissions criteria in 2010 as they did in 1980. He recommends an increase in minimum GPA admissions requirements.

The article offers the author's observations on what is being posted on the Web about U.S. journalism schools. The author believes that almost all of the posts he viewed displayed an assumption or conclusion about journalism schools, journalists, or journalism students that were inaccurate. He discusses the reporter Sarah Lacy's post on April 8, 2009 on techcrunch.com titled "Who the Hell is Enrolling in Journalism School Right Now?," journalism professor Robert Jensen's piece "Can Journalism Schools Be Relevant in a World on the Brink?" on CommonDreams.org., and "Where are J-Schools in great Debate over Journalism's Future?" by professor Dean Ernest Wilson on the Pynter Institute site.

The author reflects on the need for journalism students to take a class in media management or media economics. Benefits which the author feels students gain from taking these types of classes are mentioned, including being able to detect lies and incorrect facts and being able to know what types of employers to work for.

The article presents the author's view on a report related to mass communication research titled "The Report of the Task Force on the Status and Future of Doctoral Education in Journalism and Mass Communication." The author comments that the report is not answering many issues. According to the author, the first section of the report written by Charles T. Salmon is more concerned with the lack of groundbreaking work in the communication education.