Comments on: Part 2: Content vs. journalism – the education debate

By: Journa Liz S. Ramirez

Journa Liz S. Ramirez — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 06:51:41 +0000

I also finished a degree on journalism yet the irony there I am not practicing it full time. I (by choice) just want to basically teach its principles. It’s a paradoxy why I get interested in Journalism, pursued and finished it yet refused to apply it. Of course I know the reason: I can not tolerate the bias, unfairty, “dirt” behind it.
But I beg to disagree on the thought of demoting journalism. I still believe it is a noble carreer. But I do agree that it is not a job but a profession. That’s why instead of burning my eyebrows in rushing papers and racing with my deadlines, I made a business out of my degree on journalism — I teach it to students and professionals.

By: Journa Liz S. Ramirez

Journa Liz S. Ramirez — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 06:50:47 +0000

I am likewise also finished a degree on journalism yet the irony there I am not practicing it full time. I (by choice) just want to basically teach its principles. It’s a paradoxy why I get interested in Journalism, pursued and finished it yet refused to apply it. Of course I know the reason: I can not tolerate the bias, unfairty, “dirt” behind it.
But I beg to disagree on the thought of demoting journalism. I still believe it is a noble carreer. But I do agree that it is not a job but a profession. That’s why instead of burning my eyebrows in rushing papers and racing with my deadlines, I made a business out of my degree on journalism — I teach it to students and professionals.

By: Carrie Brown

Carrie Brown — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 02:11:08 +0000

A great post, thanks, and I couldn’t agree more about the need to innovate quickly and the many bureaucratic obstacles that exist in universities to making that happen (just changing the name of a course goes through several layers of approval and can take months, much less adding one. Ack.)

However, I’m not sure I would demote journalism programs, either. I am more for a kind of rethinking and rebranding of them in which the core values of journalism remain alive, but the ways in which we execute those are different – e.g. community management vs. writing a 10-inch story about the city council meeting.

One thing I’ve learned from teaching is that it’s easier to teach skills like managing community to students who have at least some grounding in the basics of journalism. Students need to write, report, understand the importance of verification, and get the basics of multimedia – whether they are going into a career we call “journalism” or not. Students who are truly “green” and have rarely had occasion at age 18-22 to even consume all that much quality content of any variety have a hard time just jumping into content creation or curation without grounding in those things that to us journalists are so obvious that we forget we even know them.

Carrie Brown
(@brizzyc)
University of Memphis

By: Daniel

Daniel — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 06:09:10 +0000

I don’t think the question is “How long will colleges continue to offer journalism as a major?” but rather “How long will students continue to sign up for journalism as a major?” I suspect that student opinion could shift before the institutions do.

By: Susan Crowell

Susan Crowell — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 18:08:46 +0000

I guess I’m not ready to call it a journo-day. I agree there needs to be greater flexibility, synergy, overlap, techie training in this brave new world we call communication, but I still hold fast that a foundation in ethics, objectivity, accuracy (now there’s a shocker) and, yes, even writing will benefit all.

Journalism (or communication or whatever we’ll be calling it in 10 years) education needs to change as fast as the profession itself. You’re right, and I confess mine is probably a knee-jerk reaction. But if we’re training jacks of all trades, we get masters of none, and that could create a world of mediocre communication/information dissemination. Like the book says, “develop your strengths.” And for some, that may be old-fashioned reporting and writing, teaming up with someone else who has great strengths in community building.