Bryan Murley dismembers some journalism pundits’ recurring concerns that journalism education is ditching the basics for new-fangled technolgoy courses.
[Tony] Rogers [journalism curator at about.com] believes there is too much technology in journalism schools. The title of his article posted in September: Is There Too Much Tech Training at the Nation’s Journalism Schools?
NO.
This concludes another edition of Simple Answers to Simple Questions.
C’mon, Bryan, tell us how you really feel.
I agree that the proposition to replace fundamentals with technology classes is a strawman, given that in literally hours of interviews on the topic I found nobody on either side of the debate either proposing such or naming someone who did, and that in further hours looking at journalism schools’ offerings there was not any indication this is happening. I had one person tell me he wouldn’t object if someone created a course entirely about using Twitter—which I nearly choked on—he thought that the fundamentals should be woven throughout the curriculum alongside teaching the basic technologies journalists ought to have at least seen before.
Journalism educators have a tough task in trying to teach students how to do things that may not be part of any journalism job to date, and I think all will agree that grounding students in fundamentals has to be a part of that process. But another part has to be teaching them how to understand these media, how to learn what each can do, how to tell stories in different ways and how to be flexible enough that when those unforeseen facets emerge, they won’t get on their hind legs and bleat that this isn’t the journalism they were taught. Like so many of the curmudgeons do.
