I'm sitting in a breakout session for college media advisers -- they've all broken into groups based on how often they publish or publication type and I'm sitting here alone for two reasons:
- I'm not an adviser (although that is part of my plans)
- They didn't include online as a media type
Ironically, one of the main topics they want to discuss is making sure that journalism instruction is keeping up with changes in the media (the other major part: making money, another real-world topic).
I imagine it's a major undertaking prepping college students to be journalists in multiple formats and getting them ready for the world. I know that the advisers I have the privilege to know work hard to do the best job they can, but there are a few out there that still resist some of the changes like online. Perhaps understandable: things are changing fast and it can be hard to keep up.
They're focusing on five main problem points facing student media:
- Student apathy, inadequate skill set, relevance of media
- Inadequate funding
- Technology and digital media (keeping up, training)
- Changes to mainstream media and journalism, uncertain future career options
- Problems with college and university admins (there's something comforting and unsettling that politics invade every workspace.
Really, it's very close the same main problem facing journalists in "the real world," if you replace the word "student" with "employee." We're all suffering from inadequate funding (hello, layoffs and furloughs) and issues helping everyone keep up with technology. We're all facing uncertain career options and, unfortunetly, most of us also have to deal with politics day-to-day (although from stories I've heard it's even worse in an academic environment than in a media environment).
I can speak mostly to training. It can be tough to keep up with the daily changes in technology, but there are a good subsection of sites you can read to keep on top of the most relevant changes you need to know. You might not find the latest and greatest gadgets, but you can find the best, cheap tool to get you through the day. Here are the sites I use:
Gadgets
Enspiring projects
Online life
Coding and new sites
I've also preached for years that journalism departments need to develop good relationships with their school's computer science department. Not only to develop the programmer journalist's that are so needed in American media, but to also teach traditional journalists how to play online. You can't grow in this new media unless you feel comfortable playing -- and this means so much more than posting photos on Facebook or tweeting your status (not that there's anything wrong with that).
By working with their computer science department, j-schools could open up this world to a completely new class of students who are used to work long, strange hours for the joy of creating something. Programmers use the other side of their brain, and that makes a perfect complement to journalists. They'll open you up to the new toys. They'll show you the latest gadgets. They'll know what to do with your RSS feed. Tell a programmer you want an iPhone app, but you don't know how to do it and they'll get one up and working for you (they need to build up a resume, too). It's a resource that's right on campus for most places and yet there's still a wall at many insititutions.
In addition, advisers can and should be partaking in the training available at conferences such as CMA. I see a few in each workshop I lead, but it would be great to have a technical track for advisers only.
Another major topic being discussed is student apathy. Examples have included students not inherently finding the newsworthiness of events such as a campus figure dying and instead being more focused on their own lives and Facebook updates.
Is it that they're not the journalists inspired by Woodward and Bernstein or is it that what they find important is different from what previous generations have? We have changed the "mainstream" news to be so celebrity based and non-news, that perhaps this is a generation that has been trained to not have an interest in "real news." If students don't recognize good news, we need to teach them more.
A short while later ...
I tried to speak for a bit to present what I was thinking about (after being egged on by a compatriot), but there didn't seem to be a lot of acceptance in the room. I get it -- an outsider in the room, but we've all got to start working and thinking together. Why break groups into once-a-week publishing or once-a-day publishing when we're all moving to when-it's-needed publishing?
