CSJ: Are you ready for journalism education without 'journalism'?

My latest Common Sense Journalism column. The importance of this was brought home to me again today when reading a student's description on her blog: xxxxx is a senior at the University of South Carolina studying journalism.

She may be in the journalism school, but she is studying public relations. The increasing conflation of these distinctly different things, especially in our students' minds, is dangerous.

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For years, growing enrollments at journalism and communications schools have meant a steady stream of young, fresh-faced and motivated applicants willing to work for less than they might have made by taking their degrees elsewhere.

There have been dips, usually associated with the overall economy's problems, but enrollment eventually recovered and often grew stronger.

"What is different this time is that the economy is in a weak recovery, but enrollments are dropping," according to the latest study by Lee Becker and his team at the University of Georgia in Journalism and Mass Communication Educator.

Overall enrollment has dropped for the third straight year, and some reduction is probably a good thing, given the industry's sharp shrinkage that has been offset only partially by growth in digital.
But of much concern to Becker and his team is that advertising and public relations enrollments – areas that had largely withstood the storm – have also dropped.

Journalism "is not a growth area in terms of enrollments, and a focus on journalism as practiced in the past is not likely to attract student interest," they write.

That's a fair challenge to both the industry and education: Evolve or die. Unless you've been under a rock, that shouldn't be a surprise.

But then Becker and his team write this: "The data even hint that a focus on journalism as the curricular core of the field, as the common title of the field – journalism and mass communication education – might be dysfunctional from the point of view of attracting students.

Let that sink in for a moment. Schools might do better if they removed "journalism" from the name.

Don't think administrators aren't aware of this as they look at enrollments at a time when they are under increasing pressure to show their students are getting jobs.

Well, you might ask, as long as we can still teach the core components and values of journalism, what does it matter?

As the ad and PR pros among us know, out of sight is out of mind. Just ask those teaching journalism in a "communications" program or as part of an English department. There are exceptions, but I hear the frustrations from those folks at every journalism educators' meeting I attend.

In the same issue is a note from editor Maria B. Marron, "Content Creation Spans All Aspects of J-Programs."

It's a "new era of storytelling," writes Marron, journalism college dean at the University of Nebraska. It's time, she continued, to acknowledge that journalists, PR professionals and other communicators "all share a concern for the First Amendment freedoms and that we have similar ethics – seeking truth, being honest and accurate, and having a mutual desire to serve the public interest."

PR students should be taught to dig and to push their companies to make "ethical and socially just decisions," and journalists should stop using derogatory terms about PR people, she writes.
Then she delivers the coup de grace: "The ideal calls for a j-school education that places all forms of storytelling – brand journalism as well as in-depth reporting – on equal footing. ...

"Given the numbers in advertising, public relations, and strategic communications, in many of our academic programs, and the growth in opportunities related to content creation or storytelling, both curricular and cultural shifts are important."

Permit me to demur.
Despite the shared goal of storytelling, journalism is a fundamentally different enterprise from advertising, strategic communications or public relations. PR's underlying theme is, essentially, "trust us." Journalism's is "if your mother says she loves you, check it out."

This contrast is clear in the lead article of the recent issue of another journal, Mass Communication and Society. It is about "adjudication," the idea journalists should do more reporting to determine the validity of competing positions and fewer he said-she said stories.

Contrary to fears of some journalists that this could promote views of bias, the researchers found that adjudication tended to improve the perceived quality of the journalism. Of course, the adjudication would be needed less if politicians and their PR aides weren't trying to "shape" stories.

Some of the best PR professionals I've worked with have embodied that truth-telling ethic Marron calls for, even at the risk of their careers. And some of the worst journalists I've known have seen it as a mere inconvenience.

I want to turn out journalists who understand they live in a "content creation" world and how to navigate it. And I want budding PR people to develop the moxie to tell their bosses they're being stupid and not looking out for the public interest.

But the reality is they operate in different philosophical worlds.

I fear journalists may have become so used to the surplus of bright, young talent that they are inured to what is happening. But the table is being set in some places to remove "journalism" from journalism education. If you sit back and do nothing, don't be surprised when you find it missing.

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 Past issues of Common Sense Journalism can be found at http://www.jour.sc.edu/news/csj/index.html

Academic job: University of South Carolina multiplatform position

We're now accepting applications for a tenure-track position to help us teach multiplatform journalism. Professional track is available.

See the add http://www.sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/mcis/journalism_and_mass_communications/employment_opportunities/multiplatform_journalism.php

Journalism Education: The Convergence Change Game

While doing a massive cleanout of my office, I rediscovered this game I used to play with folks who attended the Newsplex seminars here at the University of South Carolina.

Since we're still discussing many of these issues a decade later (though we don't really call them "convergence" anymore), I thought it might be fun to post for your enjoyment:

Poynter study: Gap still exists between educators, professonals on j-skills

I've just started a Poynter webinar on the latest round of its study that journalists will need in the future.

The study (PDF) reveals the same kind of gap between educators and professionals that we've seen elsewhere (See Journalism and Mass Communication Educator for several similar academic studies.) But what's interesting is that educators seem to value multimedia skills like photo, audio and video than professionals.

The report quotes Tom Huang, Sunday and enterprise editor of the Dallas Morning News: "[I]f I had to choose, I'd first choose journalists with 'traditional' skills and then train them on digital skills."

Fair enough. The bugger is how to do both in the limited time we have with students who come unprepared (I'll let others debate whether that should be "increasingly") with basic skills in language and a basic lack of curiosity and drive (the absolute basic necessity for a reporter). By the time we get over that hump, the time to teach the wide range of other skills.

And while I appreciate Huang's suggestion that he or his organization would train them, too often that is not happening -- most of the editors I talk to want the complete package.

Karen Magnuson, editor and VP-news at the Democrat and Chronicle, embodied that view:

Educators may think all of those things are important but the results
coming out of colleges are very mixed,” she said in an email. “My
personal experience with journalism grads is that they fall into one of
two categories: solid writers/reporters with limited digital skill sets or
multimedia journalists who are great with video but don’t understand how
to work a beat or dig much deeper than what’s given in a press release or
press conference. Both types are problematic in today’s newsrooms. We
need it all!”

 I find it interesting that throughout the report, independent journalists align more closely with educators. I'm tempted to suggest that perhaps the freelancers have a better understanding of the wider media ecosystem because they have to swim in all of it. Your thoughts?

Recommended reading: Steve Outing - is 'journalism' losing higher ed clout

Steve Outing has written an interesting column at his Media Disruptus site looking at the waning of "journalism" in the name of higher ed programs professing to do at least a little of it. (He also reflects on the efficacy of keeping "mass communications" in the mix in an age when "mass" increasingly is becoming "targeted."

I think he's right about the direction this is going. And I think it is for two reasons:
- The waning influence of journalism in society.
- The "penury" of the industry when it was in good shape when it came to actually funding the schools and paying some attention to the research they've produced.

This industry never has seemed to get the message: You pay to play. It's that simple.

As for the "mass communications" thing, there are many reasons for that. Among them:
- Schools that could only get that as the name because there was a dominant "journalism" program.
- The difficulty -- in the extreme in some cases -- of changing names in academic programs. Sisyphean doesn't begin to describe it in some cases.

The need for solid and intelligent metrics in J-education: On this I agree with Newton

I've had my differences with the Knight Foundation's Eric Newton over the years about what I felt were too-glib prescriptions about how to "reform" journalism education without taking into account the realities of the systems we work in.

(Yeah, I'd love to blow up the system -- but anarchy seldom has been a useful strategy to make real accomplishments and more often than not the opposite but equal reaction of political and organizational physics leaves the blow-up-ees in an even worse position.)

But count me as a big supporter of Newton's latest call for a thorough and deep examination of how we measure our journalism schools. Much too much is done anecdotally, not analytically -- and that contributes to the already painful pace of change.

However, my fear also is that this will come down to an emphasis on job placements, etc. -- in other words, made in the vision of the current infatuation with STEM (and remember, I'm a hard-sciences major to begin with, so I have some understanding of that side of things too). Oh, maybe it would not be among earnest folk like Newton, but if you pay close attention to the political winds, you can pick up more than a whiff of "why can't you be like them" and a strictly job-placement-oriented culture.

(A backlash from the humanities folks is slowly building, as I pointed out yesterday (for instance in this piece from The Philosophers' Mail), but by and large I've judged that many in the halls of academe have trouble grasping that they are being set up politically and that the light at the end of the tunnel is an onrushing political train.)

So yes, let's define the data, get it -- and use it.* But let's use it intelligently too.

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*I say "use it" with the observation that those who profess to deal with research and data daily -- when presented with data about their own operations -- have a p<.05 tendency to go into denial or ignore mode.

Worth a listen: Jian Ghomeshi's interview with Alain de Botton on The Philosopher's Mail

I've become a big fan of the CBC's "Q with Jian Ghomeshi."

But I especially recommend his interview with Alain de Botton about Botton's new site, The Philosopher's Mail.

To me, it was a fascinating and very thought-provoking conversation getting to the core of what is news and how journalists define it versus how the rest of the world views it. It would be perfect for about any journalism class, but especially for an intro to media or a principles of journalism course.

If you want to get your students' attention:
http://philosophersmail.com/270214-utopia-graduate.php

Teaching Video: Nice graphic from Poynter

If you are teaching video, especially to your reporting students, this graphic from Poynter will come in handy.

Also, I'd recommend one of my longtime favorite sites, Video 101. It breaks it down nicely with video illustrations.

For instance, how many of us have struggled through student projects loaded with jump cuts. Video 101 has a module on that.

Read it and weep - the SAT and "bullshit on demand."

Yep, everything in here is true, from what I hear from a friend who is an SAT essay grader.

From Slate: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/education/2013/10/sat_essay_section_problems_with_grading_instruction_and_prompts.html

Kroll on how to break the print mindset

You really need to read this post by John Kroll on breaking the print mindset.

It is by far one of the best I have read in many a year, and the graphic is fantastic.

AEJMC2013

The Twitter stream from the annual j-profs conference:

Tweets about "#AEJMC2013"

Journalism Education: A realy good reality check

I encourage you to read this Neiman Lab article by Amy Schmitz Weiss and Cindy Royal, two people in this j-education biz I really respect.

Amy does a good job of laying out the reality and challenges of journalism at the intersection of data and computer science.

Cindy then does a good job of adding perspective, specifically that journalism/media uses of data, computer science, etc., are often specialized applications of others' broad research and knowledge and thus are not always top-of-mind in the priority list of things like computer science departments.

(In other words, all those calls for collaboration are well-placed, but let's not get Pollyannaish about things.)

As I said, I really recommend you read it.

(You might also check this one out from last week: Larry Dailey's reflection on whether trad news orgs are ready for innovation. Goes for j-schools too.)

Why I love ACES meetings

I've been absent for two years from the annual gatherings of the American Copy Editors Society. I missed them. I'd forgotten how much till I was able to make it again this year to the gathering in St. Louis.

It's about meeting old friends - and some of them former co-workers - like John McIntyre, Bill Cloud, Wayne Countryman, Joyce Laskowski, Vicki Krueger, David Sullivan, Rich Holden (great to have him back from bypass surgery), Merrill Perlman, Doug Ward, Nicole Stockdale, Fred Vultee ... and too many others to mention.

And finally getting to meet others who have been kindred spirits over the digital divide, like Ruth Thaler-Carter (and having a great lunch).

It's about great sessions, like the annual AP lovefest and seeing my old friend and former colleague Darrell Christian. Or how to make copy readable without making it stupid.

There's listening to a former editor of Hustler - yeah, we concentrated on the text errors as he flashed various examples on the screen (trust me, the other stuff was very tastefully redacted).

There's sharing stories with others in the trenches, especially the academic trenches, about teaching editing and writing and dealing with plagiarism and fabrication. I always come away with new ideas as well as the realization we all are seeing the same thing: students who are great hunter-gatherers if the information prey is on the surface in front of them but who have trouble connecting the dots (or, continuing the bad metaphor, aren't great farmers in making things grow). It's compounded by watching more students increasingly struggle to read things quickly and critically. (I do miss the lunches that we "profs" used to have at these meetings and hope we can resume them.)

There's the great conversation about Southern politics with the guy next to me at dinner.

Followed by a great talk by Peter Sokolowski, editor at large for Merriam-Webster. Yes, people do read the dictionary, and the online stats show it. Some fascinating things. For instance, what are the most looked-up words? Affect and effect. So don't feel bad, dear student. As I've said many times, look it up (grin).

(And the reminder from Bill Walsh that sentence fragments like those in the previous graf are fine if used sparingly and artfully.)

There is great food. And there are great views.

And there's the reminder that I need to push some of our students more to apply for ACES scholarships. (Yeah, you who are going to that North Carolina city for an editing internship - I'm talkin' about you. My bad for not pushing it more. Expect to get pushed for next year when I get back. Next year's application is already online.)

And most of all there is satisfaction and pride.

• Satisfaction that the reality Nicole and I predicted has come true from when we did those blogging and SEO for editors sessions back in Los Angeles and Miami and Cleveland (and when I went solo in Denver), and people were crowding the room but also were looking at us like we had three eyes and were lighting torches and sharpening their pitchforks. I don't mean smug satisfaction -- we admittedly were out on the high wire and, like everyone else at that time, were making it up as we went. And I remember being almost jumped at the general session in Denver when I got up and suggested ACES needed to start broadening from its newspaper-centric view.
• Pride that ACES has matured, expanded and embraced the digital age and the wide range of editing arts full bore. Yes, some of it was born of necessity, mixed with a bit of panic as ACES saw its ranks thin as newsrooms went through wholesale cuts, centralization (or elimination) of editing, etc. But the measure of a person or organization is not necessarily the motivation, but how they (yes, they -- it's not wrong to use it there) respond. And by that measure, ACES has truly risen to the challenge and found its stride and its strength. And while it still remains too hidden (including, Sokolowski acknowledged, to him), and while editors still too often are seen as nit-pickers and grammar grunts, neither of which has ever been true of those who truly practice the craft, knowing that ACES continues to strengthen is great -- because I plan on attending these for a few more years at least.

Congrats on another great meeting.

Best line seen at the meeting on a T-shirt (paraphrased from memory): How does a copy editor comfort a struggling writer? Just walk over and whisper "they're, there, their."

On to Las Vegas.

Allyson Bird's "Why I left news"

Allyson Bird, one of the best students I've ever had, writes at length about why she left journalism. You should read it.

I think there's a lot to chew on here:

I don’t think the Internet killed newspapers. Newspapers killed newspapers.

People like to say that print media didn’t adapt to online demand, but that’s only part of it. The corporate folks who manage newspapers tried to comply with the whims of a thankless audience with a microscopic attention span. And newspaper staffers tried to comply with the demands of a thankless establishment that often didn’t even read their work. Everyone lost.

People came to demand CNN’s 24-hour news format from every news outlet, including local newspapers. And the news outlets nodded their heads in response, scrambling into action without offering anything to the employees who were now expected to check their emails after hours and to stay connected with readers through social media in between stories.

There was never such a thing as an eight-hour workday at newspapers, but overtime became the stuff of legend. You knew better than to demand fair compensation. If any agency that a newspaper covered had refused to pay employees for their time, the front-page headlines wouldn’t cease. But when it came to watching out for themselves, the watchdogs kept their heads down.

Combine it with the latest from the State of the Media report and it's observation that "nearly one-third of the respondents (31%) have deserted a news outlet because it no longer provides the news and information they had grown accustomed to," and I think it's time to reassess.

 One of the things I'm going to suggest to the S.C. Press Association this weekend: Do Less With Less - but do it better.

I think our audience is telling us very simply: We can get the "more" if we want it very easily. But if you want our loyalty and engagement, the formula isn't more, but better - do what you do well. Show us you care -- about us and about your own profession. And while you're at it, show us you're having some fun, because to read most news sites and papers these days is no-fun city.

(There's an interesting debate about some of this at Slate between author Matthew Yglesias and the reaction by the commenters on his article that argues journalism has never been in better shape.)

Reinventing yourself in the digital age

Here's a case study of reinventing yourself in the digital age - and not from the 18-39 generation.

Charlie and Bill Benton have kicked around the Columbia radio market for years.

Late last year, it was curtains, as their show, "Good Morning Columbia," was yanked from the air in yet another radio reshuffle.

So what do you do in this digital age?

You take your talent and depth of market knowledge - and hopefully your audience - online.

The pair have resurfaced in a podcast in conjunction with a local digital publication MidlandsBiz.com.

 I don't know whether they'll be successful. The first podcast was not overly impressive, and I don't know whether in this age, when people seem to increasingly want quick bites of useful information more than a folksy conversation, the production will work.

The production values weren't all that great (cue the announcer from what sounds like a barrel), and there's no evidence of a social media or other infrastructure at the moment beyond what's on the MidlandsBiz page.

But it will be interesting to see how it develops and if they can create their own little narrowcast channel that brings in some revenue. And it's a way to show students what their future is likely to be - one where the only constant is reinvention.

Quotable: J-schools and PR

From Bill Cotterell, a retired longtime reporter who, in arguing that a journalism degree is of marginal value, also reflects on the value of teaching public relations:

But newspapers are cutting back, and most local broadcasters are making do with one or two inexperienced reporters. They can download junk news off the Internet or fluff up public-relations handouts to fill time and space.

Dreaming up publicity gimmicks and putting smiling faces on real events is how a lot of these fledgling journalism students will wind up, at least those who land jobs. But for a university to excel in the teaching of PR is like boasting that its law school produces the best mob lawyers.

Just something to think about.

Meanwhile, let me add this from Felix Salmon:

When journalists apply for jobs today, they’re usually given some kind of writing test. Certainly the people hiring them will look at their clips. Everybody cares about how good a writer you are. So long as you write well, it seems, that’s all that matters.

But if I were hiring, the first thing I’d look at would be the prospective employee’s Twitter feed. What are they linking to? What are they reading? If they’re linking to great stuff from a disparate range of sources, if they’re following smart people on Twitter, if they’re engaged in the conversation — that’s hugely valuable. More valuable, in fact, than being able to put together an artfully-constructed lede.

One of the best new media properties to come along in recent years is the Atlantic Wire. It’s run on a shoestring budget, and staffed by young, smart, hardworking kids with fantastic reading skills. Many of them can write, too — but they write short and punchy. Which is something else Old Media needs to learn how to do: it’s always much more fun reading a Gawker pickup of a Washington Post story than reading the original piece.

The biggest shortage in journalism right now isn’t good writers, or even enlightened proprietors willing to fund investigations. It’s critical readers – journalists who can see when they’re being snowed, who can read between the lines, who can pick up information from across the blogosphere and the twittersphere and be able to judge it on its own merits rather than simply trusting the publisher.

Guest Post: Journalism Education's Future

As I catch up on things, the ongoing simmering debate about the future of journalism education shows up about every inch or two I dig down into the pile -- perhaps future archaeologists will be able to name the periods of upset by the layers.

The most recent might be called the Newtonian Period and the Finberg Epoch of the Mid-Digital Upheaval Era after the deliberate bomb-throwing at journalism education by the Knight Foundation's Eric Newton - the follow-up letter with its dark threats by the heads of six foundations that do much of the journalism education funding - and the writings on either side of the incident by Poynter's Howard Finberg.

I've picked my own bones with Newton, not so much over his ideas (which, in many cases, I heartily agree with) but over the presumption that an industry that has shown relatively little support for journalism education feels it can dictate the terms of engagement to those whose livelihoods are intimately tied up in the academy (for the record, I am not on tenure track and hold year-to-year contracts). You don't change such things by fiat, but by understanding and working with those inside the institutions to change them.

(Or, I suppose you could bypass them, which is at heart the whole threat in all of this, but then why bother wasting time on anything else? To do so is either a fool's errand or evidence that it might not be as easy as it seems?)

And so in playing catch-up, I have rediscovered this email a colleague of mine, Augie Grant, sent to Finberg when Finberg was soliciting responses to the kerfuffle. It never made it into Finberg's column, but it contains some excellent points, and so I share it as a guest post:

Howard:  I was forwarded your request for responses to the letter released last week to university presidents calling for changes in journalism schools. I have a few reactions that represent my personal views. (I’m not attempting to represent the University of South Carolina or any other organization.)

I strongly agree with the underlying premise, that journalism school must aggressively evolve in order to keep up with changes in technology, media organizational structure, and social changes. But I take strong issue with the approach of this letter, and I hope you’ll consider sharing all or part of my perspective in your article.

1.       The “teaching hospital” analogy is severely flawed. The “professionals” in teaching hospitals all have advanced degrees, and the core of their job is applying medical research for both treatment and prevention, and research is the heart of the field. And, as much as I would love to train journalists for seven years and have them receive a six-figure salary upon graduation, I doubt such a scenario is likely to play out in the near future.

2.       As a media practitioner who moved to academia, it has been frustrating to me that the majority of journalistic organizations make so little use of primary and basic research to understand journalistic processes and effects. Virtually every other major industry in the U.S., from manufacturing to telecommunications, makes substantial investments in R&D, including supporting university-based research. But few journalism organizations have made similar investments, and the output of journalism researchers is more often ignored by the industry rather than being applied. I frequently consult with businesses regarding new media and audience behavior. In my experience, high-tech organizations invest significantly in this type of research, but journalistic organizations rarely make these investments.

3.       Almost everywhere I’ve taught in a teaching and research career spanning 25 years, the faculty has included a mix of former practitioners and academically-oriented faculty members. The best environments have included individuals who have both professional experience and advanced degrees, and these individuals have proven to be both great teachers and great researchers.

4.       The biggest barrier for many professionals entering academia is realizing that a faculty position is much more than a “teaching job.” In order to earn tenure and advance in academic ranks, anyone—practitioner or academic—must generate and share new knowledge about the field. The creation and sharing of knowledge requires a combination of research skills and expertise in publishing—in books, journals, trade press, and online. In my view, the practitioners who fail to qualify for tenure and promotion are those who neglect the part of the job that requires creation and sharing of knowledge. And to state that a special category should be created for someone who teaches but does not study the industry or audience and does not publish indicates a basic misunderstanding of the fundamental role of universities in the production of knowledge.

5.      The foundations have applied their resources to support schools that appear to be taking their advice. But the foundations could be doing a great deal more to advance their cause. Specifically:

a.       They should institute a broader program of funding journalism-related research. The efforts that are currently funded are admirable, but the entire field—both the industry side and the academic side—needs greater availability of funding for basic media-related research. (One interesting side note is the rapid growth of programs in Health Communication, which have become much more important than traditional journalism education because of the availability of high levels of funding for research in all areas related to health and health communication. This trend is shifting the interests of some of our best researchers, who have a mandate to conduct funded research and cannot do so in traditional media research because available funding is so limited.)

b.      They should consider founding a new journal that would be devoted to basic research on journalism and media, using the journal to establish stronger flow of research between academics and practitioners.

c.       They should sponsor research projects to study and analyze journalism education. The (mostly) anecdotal accounts that predominate this discussion have a much lower credibility with university presidents and others who understand the power of systematic, theory-based research. 

I hope these comments contribute to a constructive dialogue in the field. There is a need for greater understanding in the academy of the need to advance journalism education as well as a need for those signing the “open letter” to better understand academia and the synergies that are possible with greater interactions among media practitioners and researchers.  

Update 9/19: Neiman Lab is doing a series of posts on J-education. Some of it's the same old stuff, but there are some new voices and nuggets worth checking out.

USC at the Democratic convention

Despite the dungeon-like conditions in the basement of the Coliseum, the University of South Carolina j-school is a fun place to work. (And that's supposed to change in a few years anyhow - the dungeon that is.)

But I couldn't be prouder today to work here because of what we are doing for our senior semester multimedia/print and broadcast students at the Democratic National Convention.

Led by faculty member Sid Bedingfield, we've managed to get almost two-dozen students in Charlotte hooked up with internships at places like AP, CNN, the National Journal, the Charlotte Observer and Time-Warner Cable's all-news channels.

The administration here has sprung for hotel rooms for them for the week, along with transit passes.

This is how we try to give our students the best, most rounded experience possible.

We don't have specific "multimedia journalism" courses - and that's kept us off some of the "prestige" lists tracking multimedia programs. Meh. We just integrate it into everything we do, plus we have The Convergence Newsletter (free subscription), the annual Convergence Conference (later this month; I hope you've registered) and Newsplex.*

If you want a reason to come to a fine journalism school, the DNC effort is just one more.

*That we're not always especially good at tooting our horn is, sometimes, unfortunate, however. Go to our Web page today and you won't see a thing about the DNC on it. I'm sure we'll follow up, but as we all know in these digital days, being out in front is important.

9/7: We now have a full story up. 

How to explain editing?

We've just come through an "interesting" (if you use the Chinese saying's ambiguous connotation of the term) couple of years here in the basement of the Coliseum as we try to refashion a journalism and mass communications curriculum that is at the same time forward-looking and flexible, yet retains the foundation of good journalism.

During the course of this, we had a family spat about editing's place. To help get the changes through -- because I thought it more important to seriously loosen our current lockstep curriculum so students have more flexibility -- I did not push to have our current required copy-editing course kept as required.

Some faculty were concerned by that, a bit of jostling ensued, and we voted over broadcast faculty objections to make editing required again for all journalism students. More jostling, another vote, and we compromised: the full editing course will be a directed elective, but an editing module will be put into our first reporting/writing course (the one after the general mass media writing).

It's an agreement I can live with, though it means I have to fashion yet another syllabus, this time for the module. (I am convinced the road to perdition is paved with curriculum-change syllabuses.) One of the broadcast arguments was, essentially, "We already teach editing as part of writing."

But it set me to thinking about how to explain editing and why it is different from writing, especially in its teaching, and why it can't really be effectively taught as part of writing (though certainly some self-editing has to be taught as part of that).

Editing is about approaching a story, in whatever medium, in a different way, with a different mindset.

Then, in getting ready for classes this semester, I came across some old lecture notes I'd scribbled years ago, and there was a phrase I think elegantly explains it:

Reporters query sources; editors query the copy.

Think about it and why reporters (and line editors) really should not be asked to copy edit their work. I want reporters knee-deep in what they are reporting, to have the mindset I've got to get it all in. I want line editors almost as enmeshed as they drive the coverage.

Left to their own devices, good reporters want to make sure everyone understands the nuances, the warp and weft that they just know, because they have the expertise, is important. This is good.

Yes, the best writers have a great sense of elegance and prose, but the best writers are not necessarily the best reporters, and vice versa. The reality is that we generally come down somewhere in the middle of both. And even the best writers have to struggle against the shackles of approaching the story from their perspective, not necessarily that of the reader.

The writer/reporter, for example, strives for that great lede (just observe how long it takes many writers to fashion one in relation to the rest of the story), but often it's as much about writing the great lede as a device for the writer to get into the muck of the story as it is for the reader's benefit.

But where the writer may instinctively know the elements of a good lede, of good flow, etc., the editor, when he or she takes up the story, approaches it differently and more explicitly. He or she starts querying that lede: Is it backed up in the rest of the story? Does it overreach? Does the verb tense give the proper sense of timing? Does it signal to the reader this is yesterday's news tomorrow, or in this digital age does it recognize the need to avoid that? Does it have the right tone?

As the editor moves through the story, more querying of the copy, just as if the copy were a living, breathing being the editor was interviewing: Do you have enough background to feel full? But do you also have indigestion from too much in one place?

Do you have any lingering questions for me?

Is everything here (or are you missing a button that you might not have noticed but that others will) … OK, a little too far on the metaphor, but you get the idea.

It's why editing remains valuable and why I shudder a bit as some news organizations think reporters are going to be able to jump into the editing desk as needed. Let reporters report and editors edit, with the understanding that editors also need some new ideas on how to do it to fit the economic realities as journalism moves from an industrial manufacturing business to a service business.

But let's also remember who queries what - and why both sides of that statement remain important.

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8/230:
Ralph Hanson reblogs a nice piece of artwork that also explains a different aspect, self-editing.

Journalism schools getting more hours with students

Jut got word that accrediting council for journalism schools just approves reducing requirements for outside hours for j-majors from 80 to 72, giving j-schools the opportunity they need to require two or more new courses for the major.

This is very important. At USC we've been redoing the curriculum, for instance, and to give students enough electives plus needed core courses, we've had to drop editing as required and create some funky other combos. Colleagues around the country are saying we simply can't cover the professional aspect of journalism education without more real or virtual seat time with these folks (who then, of course, we demand get out of their seats and into the real world to report and write).

This would give us (and maybe other schools) to put in a second writing course and some other skills or research options (I firmly believe all journalism students should be required to take at least one applied research course, and probably two).

Calls to ease up on the hours outside j-schools (and 72 hours is still a fine liberal arts education) have been growing along with the general kerfuffle over journalism education, and one study suggested no real differences between the outcomes from accredited and unaccredited schools.

Nothing is up yet on the accrediting agency site.

This is only a first step, but a good one.