Students suffer media withdrawal: clue to future of journalism? May 21, 2010
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentRegina McCombs reports: “Students use the language of addiction and withdrawal in talking about their experiences going without technology for 24 hours during a study at the University of Maryland’s Phillip Merrill College of Journalism.
‘I clearly am addicted and the dependency is sickening,’ said one student. ‘Although I started the day feeling good, I noticed my mood started to change around noon. I started to feel isolated and lonely,’ said another. [...]??Students equated technology with media — the phones, iPods, computers, laptops and televisions were just a means to get to information, whether that information was about the world around them, or about their friends. And much of that technology is mobile. Phones in particular [...] ‘A truer mapping of those pathways could provide direction to journalists in their search for relevance in the century ahead’. ”
Training the new journalist « Advancing the Story January 16, 2009
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentDeb Halpern Wenger on an NPR interview with the Dean of Berkeley's J School, Neil Henry:
"The most controversial element of the interview involves Henry’s assertion that more journalists will need to be entrepreneurs. He suggests they won’t work for traditional media companies, rather they will be in business for themselves. Unfortunately, when Cohen tried to press him on whether this would result in “journalism for hire,” Henry really avoided answering the question.
However, he did say UC Berkeley’s j-school is working with the business school to develop courses that might help journalists make money outside the corporate journalism structure."
Journalism meets data: J-school seeks professor, journalism seeks techies January 9, 2009
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : database, Journalism, journalism education, Newspapers, NYTimes, USA , add a commentAn interesting vacancy at Medill School of Journalism (Northwestern University, Illinois), which is advertising for a professor of database journalism “to teach data analysis and interactive deployment of data”. Good stuff. According to the vacancy note:
The successful candidate will have expertise in analyzing data for journalistic work and will be expected to teach students how to create and deploy database-driven applications on the World Wide Web and other digital platforms.
I imagine this role will complement the Journalist-Programmer scholarships at Medill, set up by Rich Gordon (and funded by a Knight News Challenge grant). The scholarships are geared towards programmers or web developers who are interested in journalism.
Bringing people with an IT background into journalism, rather than vice-versa, echoes the experiences of Aron Pilhofer, head journo-techie at the New York Times. Eric Ulken wrote up some interesting points from their discussions, including:
When I throw out the old question about whether it’s easier to teach a journalist programming skills or to teach a techie the principles of journalism, he tells me it’s not so much a question of trainability. Rather, he says, “there are more programmers out there that will find journalism interesting to learn” than vice-versa. He tells me that, with a couple of exceptions, the people on his team have either “very limited journalism experience or none whatsoever.”
There’s another interview with Pilhofer here, on Old Media, New Tricks.
$100 Million for Columbia J-School October 24, 2008
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentA good job they're not starting the fundraising now:
"Three years ahead of schedule, Columbia J-School has met its goal of raising $100 million, thanks in part to a $20 million donation from John Kluge"
What journalism schools should be doing? September 27, 2008
Posted by Jonathan Hewett in : delicious links , add a commentThe Future of Journalism – What Does it Look Like? USC II – David Cohn (digidave) on what J-schools should be doing:
- How individual journalists can continue to make a living despite the fall of newspapers.
- Re-define acts of journalism: change the culture of journalism to be more participatory.
- Re-define journalism’s mission: bring us back to our roots as professionals who, through services and products, serve a democratic society.
- Invigorate the culture and industry of journalism: bring back the passion. No more clasping our hands over our face like the kid in that Home Alone movie. It’s time to take charge!