Journalism teachers are failing their students
The students Wayne MacPhail sees know practically nothing about the online world or emerging media; their journalistic training reaches only a tentative few feet beyond the same traditional media it always has. He thinks that j-school training needs to be something more.
The students Wayne MacPhail sees know practically nothing about the online world or emerging media; their journalistic training reaches only a tentative few feet beyond the same traditional media it always has. He thinks that j-school training needs to be something more.
I am writing this article on an iPad which is tapped wirelessly into a
coffee shop's wifi. The device knows where it is in space and, if I
allow it, will broadcast that information to any application I choose.
Nearby, a young man browses the web on his iPhone. A woman is using a Blackberry. We are all online, all wireless and all capable of sending video, audio or text anywhere in the world.
In an instant, I could convert my iPad into a magazine-style
newsreader using one of a dozen applications such as Flipboard, River
of News, Early Edition or FLUD. Beautifully formatted pages, filled
with images and videos which my social media friends have flagged,
will flow and slide across the screen.
The young man could do the same using applications like Reeder or The Pulse on his mobile phone. Our news packages would be culled, collated and laid out not by editors and graphic designers, but by crowds and CPUs.
This is neither new nor uncommon. It is becoming the norm as millions of people snap up iPads and smartphones and a dozen new tablets wait in the wings – a new one from the Waterloo-based RIM being just the latest offering.
But, despite that, much of the fundamental (and sometimes final)
training we offer journalism students is dished out as if none of it
were happening. As if the boulder-sized granularity of the news cycle
had not melted in a quicksilver stream. As if the line between author
and audience has not been smudged to grey and as if, really, nothing
much had changed about the fundamentals of journalistic narrative
despite a wholesale remaking of the information landscape.
Many journalism profs, I'd wager, have never used Flipboard, done a
podcast, played with foursquare or Gowalla or have really seriously
engaged in an online social community. Nor have they paid attention to
the videoblogs and online networks that bear as much resemblance to a
traditional television studio as a unicycle does to a Hummer.
How do I know this? I teach 3rd and 4th year and post-grad level
online journalism courses at two Ontario universities. Over the course
of the past 15 years, I've done the same at a handful more.
I have seen 4th year students who, when I show them examples from the This Week in Tech network, rocketboom, Cmd-N or Buzz Out Loud, say they've never seen them before.
I have 3rd year students who have never edited digital audio. Who
write heads and leads with no thought to how they will be atomized and
abstracted in RSS feeds and on the screens of mobile phones and
tablets. I have a class of MA journalism students, the majority of
whom don't even know what an RSS feed is.
And, I have to ask: How can that be? How can intelligent students go
through semester after semester or even year after year of modern
journalistic training and be so frankly ignorant of some of the
fundamental concepts, tools and shows that are shaping the way
citizens ingest and participate in journalism and content? How can it
be that they only seem to know the basics of radio (maybe),
television, magazine and newspapers? How can it be that they often
treat online 1) with some derision and fear and 2) as if it were
nothing more than a place to shovel, unaltered, the products of other
media?
Rhetorical questions. They know and repeat what they have been taught. And their basic training, in my experience, does not have folded into its DNA an understanding that not all audio ends up on time-constrained, broadcast, appointment radio.
That not all news has to be produced in cumbersome, equipment-laden
studios with business-suited and scripted anchors.
That not all words will wind up on paper first, nestled luxuriously in
a contextual bed of carefully laid-out cousin stories on crafted,
immutable pages.
That not all acts of journalism have to be committed by journalists.
And that not all audiences are passive.
That not all video needs to be shot with unwieldy, obtrusive cameras.
Nor with cameras at all, but rather with smartphones tethered
timelessly to social networks and embedded players.
No. The students I see know little if anything of the online world or
of emerging media. Their own personal experience extends to facebook
and texting, for the most part. And, their journalistic training
reaches only a tentative few feet beyond the same traditional media
and means it always has. What little exposure they do get is often
provided by itinerant lecturers or faculty with little real practical
experience who have to rely on technical teaching assistants to show
students fundamentals.
And, basic online training often extends only as far as how to use
content management systems (CMS) that treat online only as digital
Tupperware for other more traditional forms. The argument for this is
that these are systems that are used in newsrooms today. But learning
a CMS isn't a course, it's an uninteresting class. And, frankly,
looking to most newsrooms for best online practice is like visiting a
glue factory to learn about race horses.
All this needs to change now, and in first year. Why? Because the
nature of story and storytelling has been altered forever. Instructors
who teach basic print need to acknowledge that not only will
headlines, subheads and other microcontent be torn apart and scattered
to tiny screens and tablets, but must also survive the dissection and
distribution of Twitter and other microblogging services.
More importantly, they need to acknowledge and explore how the very
nature of an ongoing narrative (which is at the core of much news
reporting) changes when you factor in real-time audience
participation, distribution and creation. They need to discuss layout,
not as static (print) nor somewhat unpredictable (web) processes, but
rather as a user or CPU choice. Witness apps like Flipboard that seize
and transform feeds, text and graphics on the fly.
Instructors need, in my opinion, to reconsider how stories are
brainstormed, sourced, researched and even edited, given a public with
an increasing desire and ability to be talked to, engaged with,
crowdsourced and mined in a collaborative dance of narrative creation.
Acting as if nothing has changed, or, that what has changed can be
layered on like a parka in the winter season of a student's learning
doesn't work anymore. I see the fruits of that kind of thinking term
after term. It breeds scared students who feel unprepared for the
emerging world and resentful of educational opportunities missed.
"Fine, great," I hear critics say. "That's all well and good in
theory, but we have students who come to us knowing nothing about the
craft. How can we possibly teach them more stuff?"
But I'm not advocating for more. I'm advocating for acknowledgement
and change. And, a second note: along with that honest concern I hear
an undertone, a dark counterpoint that thrums: "I fear, I fear, I
fear." Many instructors don't teach differently because they don't
know what is different. They know something has shifted, some foreign refraction by an unseen lens, but its nature eludes them, scares them or leaves them cold. Or all three. They resist changing because they have so little experience of the changed world.
Radio instructors, from day one, need to consider that the idea of
appointment radio is becoming quaint. Students who listen to podcasts
or have downloaded the NPR, BBC or CBC app to their mobile device
don't really understand that there was a time when you heard a show
once and once only. They have unpinned audio from time. Surely the
teaching of even the basics has to account for that. Surely the
inexorable shift from broadcast to IP delivery of audio alters how we
think about story telling for the ear and mind's eye. After all, our
audiences are now traversing our acoustic work more like Doctor Who
than like a steadfast hiker.
And television instructors must show students not just the evening
news and documentaries, but also the small, entrepreneurial, web-based
news and entertainment productions that fill Vimeo, You Tube, Daily
Motion and set top box offerings. Surely the TWIT network, which
produces over a dozen high quality, and extremely profitable,
videocasts a week is a model worthy of consideration when larger, more traditional television newsrooms are folding in on themselves. Surely BCE’s recent purchase of CTV is a bellwether of IP-based TV delivered to mobile devices. That is not broadcast as it was and as it will never be again.
Surely webisode entrepreneurs like the highly articulate Amber
MacArthur are equally if not more valid role models for young men and
women than vapid weather people, boisterous sports hosts and
always-standing television personalities and reporters who ask silly
questions of ignorant people on busy street corners.
Surely smartphones and streaming applications are viable tools that
have a place beside larger and more labour intensive processes and
hardware.
And, surely, we need to step back even further than that and consider
what we must bake into our most basic instruction when our audience
members are geo-locatable with breathtaking precision and when they
can share what they see, hear and think with the facility that, ten
years ago, was only afforded a remote van or a satellite uplink.
We need to understand how our audiences relate to and use news when
they are not reading it on paper, but instead, multitouching it,
exploring it with their hands and playing with media as if it were so
much fingerpaint just below the surface of their portable glass
tablets. Touch is the new click. The hand is the new desk. Where is
the new when and glass is rapidly becoming the new paper. These "news" have to change how we teach our news. From the beginning, from the core. From now on.
But, how do we do that? By playing. By living in the present, if not
the future. If you teach magazines and haven't used Flipboard on a
tablet you don't really know what's going to happen to your industry.
If you teach television and haven't shot, edited and published a news
item from your smartphone, you're missing an important part of
on-the-ground news coverage by journalists and citizens. And, more
importantly, you're unable to think creatively about how to use that
skill to tell great stories new ways and how to weave that
understanding into what you teach every day. We can't teach skills we
lack, offer wisdom about tools we've never used nor provide even the
most rudimentary opinions of social media experiences we've never had. And we can't think creatively, generatively, about how to weave online journalism into the fabric we cloak our students with from the first day they fall to our care. They expect that of us, and they are right
to do so.
Read a j-student's typewriter-written reaction here.
Wayne MacPhail began in the industry as a magazine photographer, feature writer and editor. In 1983, he moved to the Hamilton Spectator where was a health, science and social services columnist, feature writer and editor. In 1991, he founded Southam InfoLab, a research and development lablooking into future information products for this Canadian national newspaper chain. After leaving Southam, he developed online content for most Canadian online networks. Wayne now heads up w8nc inc., helping non-profit organizations, colleges and universities, charitable organizations and associations develop and implement technology-based, marketing driven communications strategies. He also teaches online journalism at the University of Western Ontario and Ryerson University. He serves on the board of rabble.ca where he founded the rabble podcast network and rabbletv. He's a regular tech columnist for the website and for mondoville.com.
September 28, 2010
Some of the traditional profs
Some of the traditional profs you refer to are award-winning journalists. They may not be tech savvy, but they know how to tell a story, and at the end of the day, that’s what the job of a journalist is. Having said that, I agree that in the grand scheme of things, online departments at traditional newsrooms aren’t exactly pillars of innovation.
Online news without video and interaction is like a newspaper without pictures — a waste of resources.
If I had the ability to change the Ryerson undergraduate journalism curriculum, the first thing I’d get rid of would be the English classes. If you think spending too much time on traditional news reporting styles is a waste of time, try sitting through mandatory English lit classes, semester after semester. I did my minor in politics, and it has helped me throughout my career. If students want to do their minors in English, they should be allowed to, but I see no reason why journalism students should have to take so many lit classes.
September 28, 2010
Yep. But I’d point the finger
Yep. But I’d point the finger higher up as well. As a former journalism student, who went into online, I can attest that the overall perception of the online stream – from students and professors alike – was that it was a route you took if you couldn’t handle the pressures of working in print, magazine, or broadcast. And all the doo-dads that comes with online? They were (and I guess, still are) seen as nothing more than gimmicks, rather than, maybe, tools.
It’s no surprise, though. Our second-year “introduction” to online journalism consisted of learning how to slap a 700-word feature onto a pre-existing web template. Even in fourth year, we were initially unequipped with smartphones, and spent the whole school year without enough classroom computers for students.
Those responsible for laying out the journalism program need to take this seriously. Give us the necessary tools, sooner, and hire teachers and instructors who have a knowledge of online journalism that goes beyond just the back-end of CMS.
September 28, 2010
Having the perspective of
Having the perspective of both a fourth-year journalism student and intern at CBC.ca, I can echo and confirm the archaic nature of instruction and resources at journalism school today.
Though there are exceptions, the problem is clear- old-fashioned instruction for an old-fashioned newsroom, offers little in terms of professional context.
By saying this, I’m not suggesting the only necessary instruction in journalism school today is how to power-up a flip cam, or compile a playlist on Grooveshark, but instead, a healthy mix of an understanding of journalism and writing in a contemporary digital setting would be better.
Instead of practical headline counting instruction and traditional paper layout practices, a practical understanding of SEO perhaps would be more valuable. Collaborative work, and making use of open-source online tools to pool resources and information is more valuable than writing a streeter any day.
Journalists aren’t using the printing press anymore, and if they are, nobody is reading their content. Journalism school needs to keep up with the tools of the trade, and the new competitive face of journalism.
As the newsroom is constantly changing, so too, must professional journalism instruction.
As a writer, the internet can be a very competitive place- easy to get swept up and lost in digital archives, and if professional journalism instruction doesn’t keep up with modern journalism practice, everyone in J-school will be writing instruction manuals and promotional pamphlets, while the democratizing internet surges forward empowering those who understand its value, and those who know how to make use of the largest library of information ever created.
Get the net, J-school.
September 28, 2010
I’m now a MA Journalism
I’m now a MA Journalism student at Western (Wayne’s one of my profs) but I can say, without hesitation, that my foundational new media journalism training came before this program – it came from doing it. I come from a student newspaper background where we collectively learned about on-line media by adding our stories to a website. We learned about social media by getting Twitter and Facebook and Flickr accounts. We learned how to EFFECTIVELY use those things from trial and error and seeing what posts/tweets seemed to resonate with our readers – and which ones didn’t. Like anything in life, diving in is the best way to learn.
Now, in Jschool, I’ve found that many of my profs have indeed been encouraging us to think about the world in terms of new technology. “Get on Twitter,” we’ve been told since day one, for instance. But here’s the thing. That doesn’t mean people will listen. It’s taken an entire semester for most people to jump on board – and for many folks, there’s still marked hesitation. Is that a prof’s fault? Goodness no. It’s our own fault for being afraid to dive in to the great sea of new media because we’re worried we’ll drown.
Wayne and other profs are right to encourage students to be leaders when it comes to emerging media streams. But at the end of the day, we’re the ones responsible for doing it.
September 28, 2010
Some good points, but you
Some good points, but you also raise a huge question.
“I have seen 4th year students who, when I show them examples from the
This Week in Tech network, rocketboom, Cmd-N or Buzz Out Loud, say
they’ve never seen them before.”
If all these 20- and 30- year old students have never used this technology — as consumers — then who is, other than, ahem, older tech-savvy Baby Boomers.
Seriously, there’s a new app, program or device being promoted and the latest and greatest thing on the streets every few days.
Inverted pyramid is still used in print (which is where the paying jobs are) or online (which is where venture capitalists go to get rid of people’s money).
September 28, 2010
Amber, I’m not saying that
Amber, I’m not saying that journalism profs aren’t experienced pros and skilled storytellers. But I am worried that the way they tell those stories and teach the basics of storytelling hasn’t changed to keep pace with the tech and the cultural usage of it.
September 28, 2010
Hi Lance:
None of the
Hi Lance:
None of the sites I mentioned were engendered by nor depend on venture capital. Most were started on shoestring budgets by former broadcasters (This Week in Tech) or by for TV reporters and cameramen (Cmd-N) who grew tired of the sameness of traditional media. Last I checked the TWIT Network was pulling in just south of $2 million in ad revenue a year and is in a hiring mode.
I agree there’s lots of innovation in emerging media (that’s what keeps it emerging) Not sure why that’s a source of derision. I wish mainstream media were half as inventive, frankly.
As for the audience. I encourage you to watch a rerun of a Diggnation live show. It’s like a rock concert, not a shuffleboard tournament. I wish the audience was more Boomers, then it would be mainstream, but it’s making progress 🙂
Nothing wrong the the inverted pyramid. It’s a solid story form. There are other interesting ones out there too. You should try them sometime.
September 29, 2010
Wayne you’ve hit this one
Wayne you’ve hit this one dead centre. For anyone reading this I’m a student at Ryerson University’s journalism program completing my fourth year.
If it weren’t for the class I took with Wayne I doubt I would know anything I do today about how quickly the journalism industry is progressing, and I have him alone to thank out of the faculty at my school.
That isn’t to say that I’m ungrateful for what I’ve learned in the last three plus years of my degree, but it’s unfortunately true that even today online journalism is marginalized in my program despite the fact that it is the only life vest floating for a dying industry.
More people need to recognize the value of technology and accept it’s impending effects on how we live, both as consumers and producers of news content.
I’m sad there isn’t a stronger online presence at Ryerson. To be honest I think Wayne is ahead of his time there, I just hope he isn’t too far ahead because if he is we may be in trouble.
September 29, 2010
What I don’t understand is
What I don’t understand is how it’s possible this generation isn’t plugged in beyond Facebook and texting. Or why they’re not demanding more online and mobile training.
As a working journalist I’ve been adopting new technology since 1988. How is it that the most wired generation ever isn’t demanding that their schools teach them how to use new tools to tell their stories?
Call me flummoxed.
September 29, 2010
I have to agree with you
I have to agree with you Wayne. I was extremely unprepared by the Ryerson Journalism program for my career in online journalism.
I think that’s because our profs (at least the majority at Ryerson anyway) have no idea how journalism is practiced now, or how to use the Internet beyond sending an email or Googling something.
When my online professor came in on the first day of class and couldn’t figure out how to get the computer to display on the TV screen (a simple push of the input button) it set the tone for the year to come.
Our online program didn’t even teach us basic HTML, barely a moment was spent on explaining CMS tools and nothing about leveraging social media aside from ‘you should sign up for a Twitter account.’
We were taught how to be great storytellers, but not HOW we’d get our stories out there.
Most everything I know, I’ve learned as a result of on-the-job training I’ve had.
Thank you for bringing attention to an aspect of journalist training that needs rethinking.
September 29, 2010
I totally agree 100%.
A few
I totally agree 100%.
A few years ago I was part of one of the first E-Journalism classes at Loyalist College and at the time we were taking part in some of the cutting edge technology influenced by journalism.
It was the feeling of on-the-go journalism, the physical act of being connected to the online world 24/7, was so powerful.
I can remember for provincial elections we had one journalist moderating an all candidates debate at the school while a handful of us were out on the streets asking voters what questions they had for the candidates. We then sent the questions live to the moderator who then asked the questions and sent back answers all in real time. It proved that being connected is not limited to a computer on a desk, and that the role that technology plays in the industry is gaining ground and that these techniques need to be part of every journalists tool box.
It is the only way the industry can move ahead and keep the masses updated with information every minute of every day anywhere in the world.
The fact that this is not part of all journalism school programs is disturbing given the fact that communicating information fast and effective is the name of the game.
Online Journalism allows us to move information quickly and efficiently and we need to embrace Online Journalism because personally I believe it is one of the saving graces of our industry.
September 29, 2010
Wayne – interesting and
Wayne – interesting and provocative piece. But as someone who has both taught radio journalism at Ryerson, and been a radio producer at CBC for more than 25 years, and produces a weekly podcast, I’d like to challenge what you say about radio listening in the “new” digital world.
You say “After all, our audiences are now traversing our acoustic work more like Doctor Who than like a steadfast hiker.”
Ironically, the exact opposite turns out to be true. The new “people meters” that measure our broadcast audience are showing that people flit in and out of our programs like mosquitoes at the cottage. Even devoted listeners to my program do not usually hear our entire documentaries.
On the other hand, our podcast listeners download our entire show, and stay with our long documentaries as bicycle to work or go for a jog. The evidence seems to show that people who are motivated to subscribe to our podcast are much more committed to listening than radio listeners who are making lunch while my show is on.
September 29, 2010
I think I was in Caitlin’s
I think I was in Caitlin’s online journalism class at Ryerson, or at least my experience was very similar that year in another section of that same class. The online journalism class consisted of Dreamweaver, basic HTML and using a point-and-shoot camera from five years ago to create soundslides. I had taught myself so many of those techniques and more in my own time — in highschool! — so I was extremely bored and disappointed with my online journalism education. I completely tuned out and trained myself outside of class or at internships.
I’m thankful that I learned how to research, report and write, that I learned the ethics of good journalism, etc., but I think the time could have been much better spent and my classmates and I could have actually been on the cutting edge of new media today had our instructors been more forward thinking.
Now that I work in new media, it’s so exciting. There’s no way I could survive in a traditional newsroom. I did an internship at the National Post and I was bored by only researching, reporting and writing. There’s so much more out there and I think the publications that take advantage of our passion and skills will ultimately be the most successful.
Not to mention that we’re also the ones coming up with new business models that actually make money at the same time.
September 29, 2010
Thanks for your perspective
Thanks for your perspective and info. I know I personally engage more with my podcasts than radio shows because they are very focussed on what I care about. I was making the point that online we have choice about how we listen, when and what not because of distraction, but as you point out, quite the opposite – engagement and choice.
September 29, 2010
Wayne, you missed my main
Wayne, you missed my main point (the one that was in the lead).
“I have seen 4th year students who, when I show them examples from the
This Week in Tech network, rocketboom, Cmd-N or Buzz Out Loud, say
they’ve never seen them before.”
If entire classrooms of 20- and 30-year-olds are oblivious, then why are you teaching it?
On the other hand, I’m willing to bet most have heard of, and purchased, newspapers.
Don’t write off the dead tree product just because something shiny has caught your eye.
September 30, 2010
I think we are missing the
I think we are missing the point when the debate focuses on whether the great stories are being told online or in other traditional media forms. If people who are criticizing online as reducing the depth of news content also see it as “digital tupperware”, then they are shooting themselves in the foot because the stories are the same ones they’d be telling. If they think its potential is limited to advertising and grabbing people with 30-second attention spans, then it’s just a misunderstanding of the way it works. Issues can be explored in the same depth as a print story, and often understood better, with the aid of online tools such as video and photography, to say the least. And think of how much more useful news is when it’s current up to the minute and tailored to the specific location of the reader – things that are only possible with online. The kind of interactivity possible with online content makes understanding the layers of a story much easier than a one-faceted print version.
Someone earlier commented that in j-school “we were taught how to be great storytellers, but not HOW to get our stories out there”, and I completely agree. Now that the way we create and use news is changing – and it is, no matter how much people complain about it – there’s no use to writing a great story if you don’t know how to get people to read it. If you write a groundbreaking piece about the education system and it only gets published in one newspaper while everyone is reading stories on Twitter, delicious and RSS feeds, what’s the use? And I also feel strongly that an awareness of this is sadly lacking in j-schools. In my third year at Ryerson, Wayne’s class is the first time I’ve understood the importance and possibilities of the online world. Other streams – and I’ve felt this from students and profs alike – look at it as a fringe discipline for those who aren’t bona fide enough to get into a “real” newsroom. It’s as though it’s for the dreamy experimenters who want to play around and avoid doing real work. Our intro to online class last year was practically laughable and would have reinforced that bias, only teaching us how to start a blog, create a soundslide – nothing that seemed very helpful or actually showed us the possibilities of the web.
As for those who are confused as to why our generation isn’t more connected beyond Facebook and texting, I think it’s what Wayne said – we aren’t being taught it. The orientation we get in j-school is archaic and we don’t expect that there is more to learn about new technology beyond Facebook and texting. I think it’s because a lot of our profs don’t either.
Thanks Wayne for pointing this out.
September 30, 2010
This is a rich and necessary
This is a rich and necessary discussion, but I have to ask: aren’t we conflating the medium and the message here? I’ll take it on faith that Flipboard and FLUD and River of News and Reeder are ingenious confections, and I confess that I’m weak on “content management systems” and I’m not even sure I have solid grasp of RSS. Does my unfamiliarity with these things diminish me as a journalist?
Call me Old School, but I worry that a journalism predicated on the mastery of the latest upgrades in data-mining, crowd-sourcing, and hyper-formatting, will become a cold mechanical craft where the prose–the simple well-told story– gets lost in the never-ending, fevered need to keep pace with the process.
Finally, as a fan of Pseud’s Corner in the old pre-online Private Eye, I have to suppress my gag reflex when I hear the new media landscape described as “a collaborative dance of narrative creation.” An enormous echo chamber might be a more fitting description.
September 30, 2010
Thanks everyone for their
Thanks everyone for their comments.. a j-student used his Remington to write us a letter in response, which you can read here: http://www.j-source.ca/english_new/detail.php?id=5696
October 1, 2010
Hi Claude: FLUD, River of
Hi Claude: FLUD, River of News et all are not just confections, they are serious presentations of news, in the same way strong newspaper and magazine layouts are. I don’t think not knowing this stuff diminishes you as a journalist, but it does make you a less efficient one if you spend any time online. It also excludes you from conversations and communities that might prove useful. I do, however, thing it diminishes the ability to teach journalism in 2010.
Lance, I understand your point (and also understand what a lead is, thanks). But many students are also oblivious to the photojournalism of W. Eugene Smith, the columns of Bob Greene and the early features of Tom Wolfe. Should we not teach those either?
I don’t write off print, nor do I get attracted to shiny objects, as you dismissively suggest. My entire career has been not about technology, but how that technology can tell great stories new ways.
October 1, 2010
After reading this and Ians
After reading this and Ians rebuttal, I must note that the focus here seems to be on the students who are either too busy to absorb every gadget, or plainly uninterested.
As a mature student who entered j-school with a solid online background (RSS, readers, html, and CMS’ are so 2004) I am pleased with the online instruction we get – for the sake of other students.
I am certainly not an online maven, and have learned a thing or two from my instructors, yet the online courses we get have a need to be balanced for the sake of the two aforementioned groups or risk frustrating or boring the future journos.
Ian is right, it’s an information flood. Wayne is right, profs and students alike are missing the boat at times. Class delivery has to be balanced though, and sometimes learning online techniques from one who is still dizzy and glaze-eyed from the whirlwind of content the web provides it as useless as not learning it at all.
People, profs and students hinge on to certain apps. Services get too much use and far more press than they deserve. I think the goal of online instruction is to be balanced, measured and realistic. Many profs are wary – as they should rightly be – of sending students on a wild goose chase and missing the big picture themselves. Can you blame them? No. Not in a world where the web-based flavour of the week can change overnight.
October 1, 2010
There’s more — far more —
There’s more — far more — to journalism than the latest app du jour, and I’m frankly worried that in the push for more technology in journalism education, we’re losing sight of what keeps our craft credible. Sure, we should teach how to use RSS, SEO, social media and the web effectively (we do), but not at the expense of good old fashioned human conversation, shoe leather and proven standards.
October 1, 2010
Profesor Wayne MacPhail is
Profesor Wayne MacPhail is completely correct in his argument.
Having graduated with honours from a Journalism school, I find that students are being given the skills to be a journalist in the classical sense. There is a hint of romanticism for aspiring journalists, that we will be running around with pen and paper, wearing a fedora with a press pass tucked into the band. Purely fantasy.
The type of professors in Journalism schools today, refuse to accept the fact that the trade has changed. How are Journalism students expected to find jobs when newsrooms are constantly shrinking and subscriptions are at their lowest points. I will admit that I am very unimpressed with how my school is adapting with the change. They actually offer a ‘New Media’ program, which I was enrolled in and when I handed in an hour long podcast story for my graduating project, I was treated differently and graded unfairly compared to the print and broadcast pieces handed in by other students. The professor teaching ‘New Media,’ didn’t know how to go about grading a modern and different style of news story.
I am now watching as these students are realizing the comfy office job at a major paper, where the writers can run up petty cash bills is often a figment of their imaginations – which is the opposite to what their professors have told them for the last four years. If it wasn’t for people like Professor MacPhail, I would not be where I am today. I probably would have given up on the profession and been as ignorant as many dinosaurs in the industry tend to be. But Journalism is not dead, it is very much alive. In fact, it is much more primitive in the sense that Journalism has gone back to a form that strengthens its true intentions of promoting democracy and less about advertising and hidden agendas.
Face it, adapt or die.
October 1, 2010
Lydia, thanks for your
Lydia, thanks for your thoughtful comments. I agree about the relentless wash of tools and sites. I try to stress (my last class was about this) that it is the underlying concepts that are important to grasp so you don’t get drowned. Gowalla or foursquare in themselves aren’t as important as the reality of geo-locatable devices and a social desire to share where you are. Twitter in itself isn’t as important as the reality of microblogging and the near-real-time web, etc. But, if you don’t appreciate the underlying concepts and don’t explore some manifestations of them, you can’t think creatively about their implications for contemporary new delivery. And, you sure can’t teach it. It appears you don’t need any coaching in that area, which is great.
October 1, 2010
Wayne,I completely agree. As
Wayne,I completely agree. As a recent J-School grad, I can attest to the fact that the majority of my mandatory courses focussed very little on tech/web. I mean, in my fourth year (2009/2010)we learned how to construct a page layout using a calculator, a pencil, and a ruler. This wasn’t a backup – this was the ONLY method taught. No InDesign, not even Quark. I felt let down, I felt I wasn’t being prepared for a rapidly (and drastically) changing field. And most importantly, due to the lack of multimedia lessons, I feel like a large chunk of my peers (minus the ones interested in tech like me) are completely in the dark when it comes to sharing their content online, getting their stories out there in an effective way, and will lack many skills needed to thrive in 2010 and beyond.
Without an extra-curricular drive to learn online media yourself, you won’t stand a chance in traditional/emerging media.
October 1, 2010
Joe, it’s not either/or it’s
Joe, it’s not either/or it’s both/and. This idea that teaching new tools and means of storytelling degrades the profession or prohibits teaching the basics is a straw man. Surely as instructors, we can teach core skills while keeping relevant. To argue the contrary is to doom the profession to be frozen in the sea of technology we grew up with, and the jobs we had.
October 1, 2010
Wayne, I don’t argue the
Wayne, I don’t argue the value of new ways of dissemination. I’m just afraid that Tomorrow’s Journalist, pressed to keep up with a Niagara of technological innovation, simply won’t have the time or the capacity to maintain the core skills.
This is what I mean by process overwhelming prose. I see this already in the content of news sites, blogs, websites . . . and (forgive me) in the quality of the writing of recent j-school grads.
When I was teaching (at the post-grad level) I had students well versed in state-of-the-art software who had a very hard time with the concept of “what constitutes a story.”
I agree, it’s not necessarily an either/or thing, but often, in real life, it becomes that.
October 1, 2010
Hi Claude:
I’m enjoying our
Hi Claude:
I’m enjoying our exchange. Part of the challenge, and opportunity, is to provide students with a conceptual framework for emerging tech, so they can find their own way through, find the tools that work and have the ability to think creatively about storytelling using them. I would rather try to unravel that knot that pretend the knot does not exist. It is simply impractical, I think, in 2010 not to face the fact that the tools and media are shifting. The alternative is stasis, and that doesn’t serve our students well, as is witnessed by the student comments on this piece.
October 7, 2010
As a journalism grad from
As a journalism grad from Ryerson I do feel a little cheated in not being able to apply social media techniques until my very last semester.
Although I feel that the professors I had were excellent and can no doubt prepare any student to become journalists, their knowledge and sense of importance regarding social media was clearly lacking.
The introductory online course was basic to say the least. It was mostly writing newspaper articles, but in present tense.
Overall, it is something that will have to change whether they like it or not. But, they should do it now and embrace it.
October 15, 2010
The new criteria for social
The new criteria for social media scares me a little (no, a lot.) Here’s a recent posting for a position in the southern US. It’s a glimpse of the Brave New World we may be entering:
“We’re recruiting a solid team of anti-establishment producer/editors, “preditors”, to collaborate on a groundbreaking PM news format unlike anything ever attempted on local TV. Don’t sell us on your solid newsroom experience. We don’t care. Or your exclusive, breaking news coverage. We’ll pass. Or your excellence at writing readable copy for plastic anchor people. Not interested. Sell us on this: Your fiery passion to help re-invent the ’80’s rooted, focus-grouped, yuppie anchors and a news desk, super Doppler ultra weather style. Your personal relationship with the internet, blogs, video-sharing, iPads, Droids, Blackberries, Blueteeth, Facebook & Twitter, and all things Modern Culture. You’re in sync with the pulse of the streets, not the PC, Capital “J” journalism world. You live and breathe content. You know the difference between “buzzworthy” and “B.S.”. You know your way around Final Cut Pro and easily embrace new production technologies. Your greatest communication tool is a keyboard, your writing is “bleeding edge”, and you realize that when it comes to the written word, less is more. You can survive and prosper in a modern, high brilliance standards “rock ‘n’ roll” culture where your supervisors are fearless and your peers are A-game “imaginators” with the highest of execution standards. You’re an earbud wearing, app downloading, rss reading, podcast playing, text messaging, flip-flop wearing professional of any age or sex, with a real-world education, interests that are anything but mainstream, and the ability to translate your bent outlook onto the TV screen. You “Get It”. The creatively challenged, old-school TV News types and anyone lost in the ’80’s should move on to the next “help wanted” ad. If this excites you, talk to us, shoot us your resume, your POV on TV News, links to your FCP editing and writing samples (whether they aired or not) and anything else you think might help sell you as a key member of this exclusive team. KIAH-TV is an Equal Opportunity Employer and Drug Free Workplace. Please list source of referral. No phone calls please. Send resumes to: KIAH-TV, 7700 Westpark Dr., Houston, TX 77063 or e-mail to: gjaffe@39online.com.”
December 15, 2010
Can’t We All Just Get Along?
Can’t We All Just Get Along? A response to Wayne McPhail…
http://redefiningjournalism.wordpress.com/2010/11/17/cant-we-all-just-get-along/