Kent State University - School of Journalism and Mass Communication

WHAT JMC STUDENTS NEED TO KNOW

Journalism students still need 'nose for news,'

but also need work in digital technologies

Good journalism is rooted in the basics -- a "nose for news," accuracy, information gathering, interviewing, balance, fairness, fact checking, clear and concise writing.

Faculty members in JMC's News sequence agree that students need to learn these fundamentals of the profession. They're not in total agreement, however, on how much today's changing technology and economy should affect what is taught.

WATCH VIDEO: Jacquie Marino says students need a strong, traditional grounding in the basics of reporting and writing. But, they also have to adapt to a world of new media.

Veteran journalist and faculty member, Tim Smith, believes students need to be prepared for the jobs that exist today in journalism, not those that may exist 20 years from now. Changing the curriculum to reflect every development on the Web isn't realistic because developments on the Internet are so dynamic, he says.

"There are also limitations on the number of new courses we can offer," Smith said. "To remain an accredited program, we have to have so many hours in the major and so many

hours outside the major. Every time we add something to the list of major courses, we have to take something away. Either that or we start piling up the number of course credits it takes to graduate."

On the other hand, assistant professor, Karl Idsvoog, believes the program should be centered around the Web, which means, among other things, shifting the focus of the introductory Newswriting course from its traditional emphasis on newspapers.

"There's no reason to write for newspapers," Idsvoog declared. "We might as well have a class on how to operate the telegraph."

Idsvoog continued: "Your writing course needs to focus on writing for the Web and writing for video. People have to understand video and audio editing and putting a video story together. What we have to do is develop the multimedia mindset. Journalism is far more complex than it used to be. Yes, you have to confirm the facts. Yes, you have to get the information. You have to really develop your strategy, but you need to conceptualize the project from the beginning."

But technology is useless if journalism schools aren't training students to be good reporters, he said.

"To succeed, J-schools are going to have to make a decision: Are they going to adapt or are they going to die of irrelevance?" Idsvoog said.

A ROSE IS A ROSE IS A ROSE . . . MAYBE

In the wake of the digital revolution, schools across the country also are debating what to call themselves and the information they teach. Is it still "mass communication"? Should there still be a "newspaper" major? Some of the debate goes to content, some to marketing strategy.

Idsvoog said he hasn't given much thought as to what the program specializations should be.

And Jacquie Marino, assistant professor, admits she doesn't have the answer.

"The jury in my head is still out on that," she said. "I'm still figuring that out for myself."

Universities are businesses, and if students want certain things in programs then they should get what they want -- to an extent, she said.

"Should we get rid of the tracks [majors and sub-majors]? I'm not convinced that we should at this point because, again, students come here with a particular idea of what they want to pursue. And they don't necessarily want to do everything to an equal extent," Marino said. "We should make them experts in that track but also broaden their minds and make sure they understand the larger media universe they operate in."

LOOKING FOR A HAPPY MEDIUM

But she said that doesn't mean that students should only study what they want and not learn anything else.

"You have to find a happy medium," Marino said. "We are the experts in our fields. We need tell them what they need to know, but at the same time we have to be careful not to alienate them with a bunch of stuff they don't care about."

"They need to train people to work in those jobs," Tim Smith says. "Whether they call them newspaper or magazine doesn't make a lot of difference. I'm not concerned so much with naming as I am with content. But I think we need to continue to teach basic information and basic information delivery, and the platform can be adjusted as needed."

Marino, among other professors, believes that there are multiple things journalism schools can do to prepare students to be competitive in the industry. Incorporating more classes that deal with the business end of journalism, including the entrepreneurial model, is imperative, she says.

And so is teaching all students how to communicate in different formats and for different platforms.

By Holly Schoenstein for The Co--Lab

"There's no reason to write
for newspapers. We might as well
have a class on how
to operate the telegraph."

--Karl Idsvoog, JMC professor

Another point of view

WATCH VIDEO: Tim Smith says there are still a lot of newspaper and broadcast jobs available, and he questions whether the curriculum needs as radical a change as some claim.

Other parts of the story

Opening video

Technology, economy drive JMC changes

News students need to report across platforms

PR, advertising students need more online skills

Media production students learn about Web

JMC curriculum is changing, sometimes slowly

How prepared were recent grads?

Return to JMC front page

Do we need 'Digital Communication'
or 'Online Journalism' majors?

There have been long-standing majors at Kent and elsewhere called Newspaper Journalism and Broadcast News.

With the evolution of media industries and changes in academic offerings, some ask whether majors and sub-sequences should be renamed. Some universities, for example, have created Online Journalism or Digital Communication majors.

JMC's Jeff Fruit says that probably won't happen at Kent State. Not because we're ignoring the dramatic changes in the professional fields, but because the emphasis on multimedia and the Web needs to be embedded in all coursework.