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Cynthia McCune's personal annotations on this page

cynmccune
Cynmccune bookmarked on 2009-08-29 J-school journalism future of news

J-Schools: missing the boat.

"...journalism schools too face a crisis of competence and confidence. We have to agree that while much remains that is good, some of what we do is outmoded and badly needs to be fixed. To survive, journalism schools have to become much more intellectually and professionally ambitious."

  • Finally, our profession needs to raise its sights much higher and link our teaching and research to broad issues of media, democracy and societal changes, and eschew the self-referential, inward-looking focus that marks too many academic exercises.
  • The schools especially need to end the shocking economic illiteracy that marks too much of journalism education today, which makes it harder to get high quality economic reporting, while reinforcing the fire wall between the business and content sides of the profession
  • Third, the academy must begin to produce more high-quality, relevant research that draws on rigorous traditions in the social sciences. These tough times demand big questions and big smart answers -- not puny answers to unimportant questions.
  • Second, what  we teach and how we teach needs to be deeply informed by more regular conversations with practitioners. Journalism professors need to reach out more systematically to media professionals in the new and the legacy media. We need to go to professionals in their newsrooms and business offices, and to the garages and new media incubators of media entrepreneurs.
  • First, the teaching profession needs to admit the extraordinary urgency of our situation. Simply put, we adapt our we die.
  • The relations between professors and the profession seem curiously stunted
  • journalism schools too face a crisis of competence and confidence. We have to agree that while much remains that is good, some of what we do is outmoded and badly needs to be fixed. To survive, journalism schools have to become much more intellectually and professionally ambitious. 
  • journalism schools obviously have a huge stake in the survival and future of the media. These are the institutions that hire most of our graduates. If the media markets don't recover somehow, someway, then we may lose half our students, half our revenues and half our faculty positions. 
  • In a moment of root and branch radical changes throughout the media, where are the open, public debates over radical options coming out of the top journalism schools? Where are the suggestions on how to change our teaching, research and public service practice to contribute to the rehabilitation of American media? After all, the stakes are high –- arguably, democracy itself.
  • I find it curious that there hasn't been greater attention to the performance of the nation's leading journalism schools in the midst of the media meltdown occurring all around us every day.
  • Yet arguably, the performance of journalism schools has something to do with the current sub-par performance of the profession. And the performance of journalists working in independent, high quality media has a lot to do with the fate of our American democracy.
  • journalism schools are not adequately engaged with the great public debates over the future of their core sector. 

This link has been bookmarked by 2 people . It was first bookmarked on 29 Aug 2009, by Cynthia McCune.

  • 31 Aug 09
    anachison
    Andrew Nachison
  • 29 Aug 09
    cynmccune
    Cynthia McCune

    J-Schools: missing the boat.

    "...journalism schools too face a crisis of competence and confidence. We have to agree that while much remains that is good, some of what we do is outmoded and badly needs to be fixed. To survive, journalism schools have to become much more intellectually and professionally ambitious."

    J-school journalism future of news

    • Finally, our profession needs to raise its sights much higher and link our teaching and research to broad issues of media, democracy and societal changes, and eschew the self-referential, inward-looking focus that marks too many academic exercises.
    • The schools especially need to end the shocking economic illiteracy that marks too much of journalism education today, which makes it harder to get high quality economic reporting, while reinforcing the fire wall between the business and content sides of the profession
    • 10 more annotations...