@alainsaffel kicked off a bit of a discussion this morning, with this tweet: With huge cuts in journalism jobs, nobody’s asking the question: when are journalism schools going to close? Several of us kicked it around, 140 characters at a time, for a half-hour or so, without coming to conclusions, of course, because Twitter works best for planting ideas and exchanging thoughts, not solving complex problems.
Journalism education is something I think about a lot, sometimes when I’m in the middle of delivering some journalism education. I tweeted this morning that despite the massive changes in the industry, there will always be a need for journalists and journalism training. Later in the day, I told my students (in effect; I didn’t put it quite this coherently) that while the internet provides a wealth of information and training for those who want to be journalists, the value of the school is the guidance, coaching and feedback that build skill and confidence.
Also, this morning, I tweeted that journalism schools need the type of reinvention that is sweeping through media. Some schools seem to be doing a fine job of that. Watching from the outside, it seems that the masters program at UBC is one of those.
Some of the things that I think have to be seriously looked at, based on my own experience in j-school (as a teacher only), the experiences (and frustrations) of my students, and reading a ton of writing from j-school teacher and students:
1. Institutions aren’t built for quick change and adaptability. Significantly changing or adding a course can take anywhere from six months to a year, because of deadlines for calendar, etc. That’s a fine process for philosophy or history, but not for journalism courses. The last time I made a major change in my courses (rolling in much online and multimedia), I had to shepherd it through five different committees, starting eight months before the first of the new classes was taught.
2. Not everything that should be taught belongs in a three-credit, semester-long course. Worse, not every subject deserves a semester-long, three-credit course, which means some things tend to get dumped into some other course so that they get covered. With a structure based on the idea of the semester and the three-credit course, you get a hammer and, of course, to a hammer everything looks like a nail. It makes more sense to me to think in terms of modules that are exactly as long as they need to be and not one hour more.
3. And while we’re thinking in modules, we probably need to take a look at who’s doing the teaching. It’s nuts that I’m teaching intro writing skills, feature writing, newspaper design and layout, all aspects of multimedia, etc. I think I do it well (because I work hard at it), but students would be better served with many more voices than mine. A modular approach, with shorter-than-semester “courses,” opens the possibility to bringing in more folks for shorter periods of time. More voices, more better.
(Yeah, I know that adopting such a system would interfere with my ability to make money, which is a serious personal drawback. But we’re dealing with hypotheticals here. I hope. The reason I teach all those courses is so that I can maintain my three-quarter-time employee standing, and take home a reasonable pay cheque.)
3. Classroom exercises are of dubious value. Ideally, every single assignment for a journalism student should be reality based.
4. Internships need to be re-examined. I realize the value of students being thrust from the academic world into the world of the newsroom, but I’m unconvinced that a short-term exposure (we do two, four-week internships) does much more than build student confidence. And I have some trouble morally defending unpaid internships, which students have to pay tuition for.
5. We do not put enough emphasis on students trying and failing. The college system (especially scholarships) relies on GPAs; many students are fixated on grades and terrified at the thought of failure, which is where all the interesting learning takes place.
6. Ideally there should be a way to certify a student as Ready to be a Journalist, whether that’s at the end of the first semester or the 15th. I know that screws with the whole concept of the degree — not to mention budget office planning, etc. — but some folks are ready to go before we’re finished with them.
7. We need to move past the concept of education based on the full-time student and structure for partial continuous learning, with multiple entry points, to serve the full range of journalists — want-to-bes, developing, practicing and even accomplished.
8. We need to more carefully screen journalism teachers for openness to — but not uncritical acceptance of — new ideas.
As always, feedback more than welcome.
Tags: education, journalism
I read your list of ideas, and Angela MacIsaac’s note about the two-year J-program here at Holland College, with interest. I was hired to replace Martin Dorrell after he died in a car accident. Here are a few observations. Time it takes to introduce courses – We’re fortunate, we don’t have a long gestation period for course changes. I introduced Manipulation and the Media and Science and the Media simply by doing it. Value of in-class exercises – I agree, make it real. We’ve revamped our program so students now spend 12 of 15 weeks in term 2 of year 1 producing stories for our paper. They start interviewing in week 4 of term 1 and must do 10 warm-body interviews by Christmas.
You are giving a good tips for the remaking of the journalism education. It gives the various tips for everyone to receive important information. Thanks for sharing this ideas. It gives good scope for the journalism.
by
thoi trang
You are really giving some remarkable ideas for the journalism. It tempts me to do this job in the future. Thanks for your beautiful advice to everyone.
by
Skin care
[...] Mark Hamilton’s “Remaking Journalism Education: Some Thoughts.” [...]
[...] rush to get this post out, I missed two really great sets of ideas from earlier this year: “Remaking Journalism Education: Some Thoughts” from March and “Bring-a-Professor chat wrap-up” at CollegeJourn in February. [...]
[...] Mark Hamilton convida a pensar mudanças para o curso em seu blog. [...]
I read your list of ideas, and Angela MacIsaac’s note about the two-year J-program here at Holland College, with interest. I was hired to replace Martin Dorrell after he died in a car accident. Here are a few observations. Time it takes to introduce courses – We’re fortunate, we don’t have a long gestation period for course changes. I introduced Manipulation and the Media and Science and the Media simply by doing it. Value of in-class exercises – I agree, make it real. We’ve revamped our program so students now spend 12 of 15 weeks in term 2 of year 1 producing stories for our paper. They start interviewing in week 4 of term 1 and must do 10 warm-body interviews by Christmas. I mistakenly referred to them as ‘hot bodies’ in class one day and never lived it down. They also cover the legislature, city council and court. Also, students spend 10 of 14 weeks in term 1 of year 2 doing real stories. We’re reviewing our internships – 4 weeks in year one and 6 weeks in year 2. The 6 weeks seems to work, but the 4 is a mixed bag. Some do well, some aren’t really ready and struggle. Maybe the first-year internship needs a rethink. We’ve recommended to the chains a form of paid internship – an honorarium to pay for room and board, etc. Many years our best students can’t go the papers they should because they can’t afford it. And some chains never get to see those students, losing out on the chance to hire them. We’ve also expanded our definition of an internship site to include radio newsrooms. And we’ve set up day internships at the daily Guardian in Charlottetown, a private radio station and the CBC. It gets students out of class and into a working newsroom. Those are available to second years, who can spend about 60% of each week there. Sending students out when they’re ready, not when we’re ready – I had a young woman last year wrap up the course at Christmas, 4 months early, our earliest ever. I encouraged her to go to UPEI to complete the joint degree we have with that school. She completed that degree a year early. Students can leave for jobs by Christmas of second year, if they’re good enough. One did this year. That’s not unusual. They finish their course work from there. Modules versus 3-credit courses – we’ve just gone to a 3-credit course evaluation system, so universities understand how our system works. As Angela pointed out, we used to use a 1-2-3 system of evaluating skills, but universities were mystified, and we want our students to be able to use what they get from us as part of a degree. But we’re willing to credit students for work done outside of the traditional course time if it applies.
[...] Remaking journalism education: Some thoughts, Notes from a Teacher [...]
Hi Mark,
Thanks for furthering the discussion.
I was drawn, in particular, to point No. 6. I’m a graduate of the old one-year Diploma in Journalism at Holland College in Charlottetown, PEI. Martin Dorrell, God rest his soul, had devised a print journalism program in which were ranked 1 through 5 on the skills required to be a journalist.
We had to maintain at least a 3 average in order to continue onto the next skillset. We were graded on statistical analysis (I sucked at it), lede writing, headline writing, features, hard news, and so on.
And Martin, curmudgeonly beyond his years, was more than happy to let his eaglets fly free from the nest before they completed the program. If the jobs existed, he encouraged those of us at the top of the class to move on and he would complete our grading as we went.
I don’t recall that any of us did do that, although I missed graduation ceremonies as I had to head for Newfoundland for my first job in the biz.
But the opportunity was there.
I thought I was better prepared for the job than my peers at big-name J schools with the word ‘university’ in it, because they dwelt on theory and not practice.
Thanks for letting me ramble. I also just remembered how Martin’s eyes would roll every time I told I wanted to be a sports writer.
Now I’m wistful.
[...] of the comments on my last post, on journalism education, (and, by the way, thank you all for the feedback) touched on something I’d wanted to include [...]
[...] out the rest of Marks ideas and leave your thoughts here. This entry was posted on Sunday, March 8th, 2009 at 9:23 pm and is filed under The Media. You [...]
[...] UM POST a reter de Mark Hamilton sobre o futuro do ensino do jornalismo – Remaking journalism education: Some thoughts. [...]
Mark,
Another item to consider is how J-Schools, and professional media can reach down and support high quality journalism programs at the High school and Middle school level. As cuts hit K-12 once again, of course electives like Journalism, Yearbook, Newspaper, Video, Broadcast J, etc. are all in danger.
Just my half pence.
And thanks for your blog- I love it.
Mark Whitson
Lebanon High School Publications Adviser
Lebanon, Oregon
[...] his Notes from a Teacher blog for a while, but maybe it was a good break. He’s back with a powerful post about how we need to change journalism education. I think he is on with almost all 8 of his bullet points. But I love #5 the [...]
After spending 30 years in the printing business and then 7 years teaching at a “prestige” design school in NYC, all of your points are right on for design education. After a year working with a vocational high school, it’s pretty clear that a search and replace with almost career training would essentially be the same story.
I’ve come to the position that the best models going forward is a “back to the future” approach of apprenticeship combined with full time mentors.
The professional schools have, until now, a very stable commercial model. The price of a certificate is now becoming unsustainable. Meanwhile, their legacy overhead does not allow them to lower their costs.
I can easily imagine newspapers setting up Institutes that are not trapped by the rules of the education business and are focused on preparing students to take their place in the new world of journalism.
Imagine a New York Times Institute of Graduate Journalism. Not as a public service, but as a core business on it’s own.
A mentor leading a group of 5 -10 students doing the real work with regular times to measure and reflect on their practice.
Chad:
Good point. I got carried away. I suspect that j-schools will eventually go through the same shakeout that the journalism industry is going through.
Mark
A lot of great, innovative ideas here and I agree with most of them. But I don’t think any address the original tweet: can (or should) J-schools survive — or at least as many as there are now — when there are so few journalism jobs available.
Mark good thoughts and very good points. And this is coming from an ex-4 year college Journalism Diploma instructor and 30+ year working journalist veteran. Your points on the college level can not be argued!!! All of my student work in the past has been about students getting paid and fulltime work. Mark your points…………………………….all point towards getting students full-time work……………..and that is what instructing and teaching is all about.
Please, please continue!!
Tom Braid
You’ve hit the nail right on the square head of institutionalized learning. Few other professions have changed so much in such a short period of time and to relevant for the future change must happen.