A great evening, February 8, The Emerging Skills of Tomorrow’s Journalist. Very informative. Cutting edge. The kind of wisdom regarding the direction of journalism that my Colleagues have chosen to ignore, especially in light of their effort to introduce a journalism/media curriculum so lame that I’m embarrass for them. They aren’t.
More to follow about the event and the direction of journalism.
Journalism Handbook for Students:
Journalism students enrolled in courses taught by Professor Gregg Morris are regarded as members of a community of scholars. Scholars push forward the boundaries of knowledge; respectable student journalists serve their public and their communities by seeking and reporting the facts as accurately as possible. Good journalists and scholars share a commitment to the same principle: integrity in their work. A doctor’s ethos is, “do no harm.” For journalism students, it’s “tell the truth.”
The handbook I’m using in class this semester is based on the handbook developed by NYU Professor Adam L. Penenberg who makes it available to other instructors via Open Access License. It has been abridged for students writing for the WORD.
Brilliant.
As burgeoning technology writes and rewrites the profession and business – as it has been doing for many years – this writer/editor as instructor had tried for years to revise curriculum and syllabi to keep up with changes even though the uncertainty and warp speed of change seemed formidable. Cues from recent graduates and seminars and discussion sessions and workshops were informative as the angst reverberated through various media about journalists whose careers and expectations seemed to be withering as newspapers cease to exist and layoffs seem to reign. So-called broadcast media also were effected.
How should students be informed was a regular concern as the tsunamic gloom and doom, amply supported by waves of anecdotes about the demise of this or the death of that or the whatever tradition, swept forward. Now this, from Michael Mandel, a former chief economist at Business Week: The Evolution Of The Journalism Job Market: We May Be Headed Into A Golden Age.
First, the next jobs expansion is likely to be driven by a communications boom (see this paper I did for the Progressive Policy Institute). Second, we may be headed into a Golden Age of Journalism, where the combination of the falling cost of communications and the high demand for news just opens up all sorts of possibilities for doing journalism in different ways.
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Read the rest of the article here.
I’m working on grad recommendations but wanted to know what to tell undergraduate students who don’t graduate for a year or two. So, I contacted former WORD writers and asked if  grad-j programs were worth the money and what undergrad students should be doing now if they are interested in j-careers in this period when journalism is undergoing revolutionary change and the job market sucks.
The responses are just beginning to pour in from around the world and will be showing up in the WORD and WORD blog very soon.
If institutions of higher learning desire academic honesty, they must be institutions of obvious integrity, places where students, faculty, and administrators seek truth and wisdom and technical expertise in an environment marked by trust, honesty, respect, fairness, responsibility, and courage. — Peg Hogan, Former President, The Center for Academic Integrity.
September 18, 2009 – “The new semester is well underway at almost all the nation’s journalism schools. Students have received their syllabi, explaining exactly what the school expects from its students during their courses. But what should students expect from their schools?
Woman Sues College
…. over her inability to get a job after graduation.The reader comments on this piece are interesting.
How do Hunter students feel about this?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/02/unemployed-woman-sues-col_n_249544.html
Posted on Hunter-L, the College listserv, by the Chair of the anthropology department.
I posted a response:
I posted the following on Hunter-L, the College listserv:
Someone has been posting notices in the North Building about this course, “Programming for Everyone,” CSCI, 133, Registration Code: 5020. Only 23 seats. Summer session.
I strongly suggest savvy, enterprising J-students to enroll ASAP if possible. A brief description from http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/csci – “If you’re in any of the sciences or maths then you know you’re going to write some programs eventually, and, if you’re in the arts, then you want to create new media.”
Whoa! Sounds like a prescription for journalism students, especially those with entrepreneurial instincts. It’s only a matter of time before serious journalism programs start considering programming instruction (uh oh, turf war) for their best students.
Hop the wave now before the stampede. Can’t get in the class? Do the minor later on.
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WORDPRESS has shown me the way.
Do they really want to teach introductory news writing? Instruct students whose impressions of journalism have been influenced by the content of their Myspace and Facebook accounts? Are they passionate about preparing the next wave of journalists?
Lesson 7.
More should be done to encourage student contact with professional journalists. My Ford Foundation project, for example, allowed students to work alongside professional journalists in the field. Arrangements like this can more productive than merely inviting professional journalists to be guest speakers in class (though I don’t disapprove of guest speakers but in my experience too many pros show up and blow big-time smoke, and are rarely candid about the dynamics of their newsrooms nor candid about the ethical quagmires they must negotiate in order to do their jobs and look themselves in the mirror).
More examples: Students working alongside professional journalists at the New Hampshire Primaries and at the Democratic National Convention in Denver and at the Presidential Inauguration though the latter was more about pageantry.Â
Imaginative projects can prepare students for the best internships and apprenticeships.Â
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The Fifth Circle of Hell: Resistance Is Futile
Sunday, October 18th, 2009Prescient signs: The smack, smack, smacking of students smacking the wall.
(more…)
Tags:journalism education, the undergraduate experience, undergraduate education
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