What is the best way to train as a journalist? The debate is raging over on Mindy McAdams’ blog.
It’s widely accepted there are two main ways of getting into journalism. Route 1: A degree course of three years or more. Route 2: A trade school (or polytech if you’re in NZ. Or in the UK, this would be a college, I guess) for a year or so.
The third and so far unmentioned route is the ‘go it alone’ vision. It’s no secret that the world’s best journalists have landed via this method, but I’ll be discarding this one. Argue if you must.
The question is, then, which route is best?
I’m in the lucky position to have experienced both. I studied a degree in journalism at the University of Lincoln until this year (I graduate next week, expect a photo or ten!), and I also taught on a trade school course, out in New Zealand, at Whitireia Community Polytech.
The key difference here, I don’t really need to add, is that I was on opposite sides of the learning experience in Lincoln and Wellington.
I was lucky enough (honestly, it was a great debate) to enjoy this argument in real life over dinner with Jim Tucker and Martin Hirst.
On one side of the table, Martin defended degree courses. Three years at AUT, he said, not only gave you hands-on skills, but also the journalistic mind.
Jim’s course, however, was an intense practical endeavour. Students are journalists from pretty much day one.
At the time, I sided with Jim. Although I’d spent three years of my life at uni, not to mention a load of my own and my family’s money, I came to a conclusion that a trade school is the way to go. The course had one goal: to produce journalists.
You could argue — unfairly perhaps — that the trade school approach has somewhat of a production line feel to it. What they produce is journalists based on the designs of journalists gone by. Where a trade school lacks, I believe, is in creating thinkers.
Why are we doing this? Where did it come from? What will it become? — all questions that are rooted in studying ethics and history in detail.
During that dinner, Martin made the point that I could only make such observations about the two courses and their use in the world because I’d be lucky enough to have enjoyed both.
And let’s not forget that my position in NZ came about from this very blog. Would I have been discussing journalism in this way had it not been for my university education? I’m not sure.
But still, I put contacts, skills and value-for-money over all of that. And so still the trade school was winning.
I thought back to my uni life. I founded and edited a newspaper. I had a radio show. In fact, I dipped my finger in every available journalistic pie going. There are opportunities that can only be created by universities because of one simple reason: budget.
But that budget has it’s own unique cost. Universities are determined to fill their lecture theatres. I know Lincoln certainly was.
I’ve no doubt that universities have terrific journalism tutors, but what value is a tutor of any quality when they have over 100 students to serve? It’s impossibl to do it well.
With the small, trade school-sized classes of 20 or so, a tutor can really gain good rapport with all of them. At Whitireia, Jim and I would be thinking about stories that were coming in. “Ah, xxxxxx would be good for that story,” we’d often say. We knew our students. We knew their personalities. We knew that Dave plays golf at the weekend. We knew that Jono loved rugby — and that his girlfriend was a hairdresser.
Isn’t that how newsrooms work? Isn’t that how JOURNALISTS work?
There are two sides to this coin.
On one hand you have the might of university. The prestige, the money, the time and resources to really learn your subject. Whitireia could never, for example, install a great big radio studio like Lincoln did while I was there. The money just wouldn’t be there for it.
But on the other hand you have trade courses that involve little time-wasting, less money (let’s not forget: journalists shouldn’t just be those who have enough money to study away from home at university) and — from my experience at least — better 1-on-1 teaching.
When a j-school is small, it can swiftly adapt to new ideas. Take Whitireia’s NewsWire website. Designed, implemented and live within four weeks. The amount of ‘you beat us to it!’ comments we received when we went live tells you all you need to know about the speed in which a university curriculum can evolve.
“We’re going to do this, we’re going to do that.” I hear it everywhere. I heard it in NZ, I hear it in the UK. Well if I was a journalism student I wouldn’t give two hoots about what you’re going to do. I want to go somewhere where it’s happening already.
And although I feel bad in criticising my own education here, I don’t think universities provide the best source of learning for journalists. Not by a long way.
The new way to learn journalism
January 20th, 2009There’s a very interesting piece in a Guardian supplement today about something they’ve labelled University 2.0.
Annoyingly — and surprisingly, considering it’s the Guardian — the article isn’t online. But not to worry, I’ll quote the bit that got me thinking:
Isn’t that great? Pick ‘n’ Mix education. The finest material from the finest institutions.
A date with Greg Linch and Andrew DeVigal
And, of course, this is already happening. A fortnight ago I logged on to Twitter to see Greg Linch tweeting about his imminent live webcast with the New York Times’ multimedia editor, Andrew DeVigal. I’ll pop in and have a look, I decided, not because I was really interested in sitting down for an hour and watching, but because I a) like Greg — our careers seem to run in parellel in some weird way and b) I wanted to see if it was any good.
And boy, it really was. Watch it here. Now while the shot may have been a little dark (owing to the fact Andrew was doing a presentation), it didn’t detract from the viewing. And even when the audio dropped out of sync every so often, it didn’t really matter too much.
Why? Because Andrew was brilliant. Engaging and well-prepared, his ‘lecture’ was more like a Jobs-like keynote… pacing around the room, getting excited about what he does.
And then add to the experience that while this was going on, Greg was popping links into the chat panel so that we could have a go at what he was talking about. For example, when Andrew mentioned the Virginia Tech graphic… Greg popped up moments later with a link. In that respects, this experience was actually superior to actually being there.
Oh Mindy, you came and you gave without taking
Really, she did! And indeed… she does. Constantly. Mindy McAdams, I mean. She puts her courses online so we all can learn. I used them extensively to prepare my work for New Zealand. Not because I was lazy and just wanted to copy, but because I know that Mindy is possibly the best in the world at what she does. How do I know this? Because she puts it all online. So, if the worry from colleges and universities is that free courses will mean no students — I’d argue it means the opposite. If you do a great course, we’ll all know.
Mindy doesn’t stop there. Not content with just plonking course syllibi online, she also makes online content for teaching too. Made for her students, but shared with the world. Want to learn Flash? Take a look.
Let the thinkers do the talking
So, from the practical skills-learning of Mindy, to the theoretical get-your-mind-thinking work of Adrian Monck. I was lucky enough to catch Adrian in Cambridge last year as he introduced his new book, ‘Can you trust the media?’. He is a strikingly nice bloke and, even more importantly, he discussed things that still embed themselves in my head on a dayt-to-day basis. As I established over dinner one night in the company of Martin Hirst and Jim Tucker, a good ethical brain is as important to a journalist as his newsgathering skills.
Adrian shares his thoughts on a daily basis. Offering up links and resources that, in previous years, would traditionally be saved for his students — he teaches at City — tied up in reading lists that are as long as they are tedious.
And then there’s Paul Bradshaw, David Dunkley Gyimah and the brilliant Jay Rosen. What a dream team! Not to mention all the educational journalism blogs out there. 10,000 Words being the best example right now.
Please, sirs, can we have some more?
So all that’s great, isn’t it? Of course it is! You’d be mad to argue that all this information in the open internet isn’t promoting better journalism.
As ever, we can do so much more. At the University of Lincoln, the wisdom-ous Richard Keeble organises a series of guest lectures every fortnight. Past speakers have included the BBC’s Jonathan Charles, Channel 4’s Dorothy Byrne and, the speaker that really kicked off this blog for me, Philip Knightley.
They were all brilliant sessions. With some lively Q+A. Next month, Lincoln will be hosting Will Lewis, editor of the Daily Telegraph. I’m going to try and go. But couldn’t this be streamed too?
I know other universities are holding similar sessions. And I’m sure we’d all be interested in what each place is learning about — so why can’t we share? Why can’t some students at these universities be shown how to set up a camera and stream these guest lectures to the world. I’m sure, like when I logged on to Greg’s feed, we’d have journalism students from all over the world chipping in to ask questions, get involved in discussion and, above all, LEARN.
The great open-source syallabus
In the last month I’ve attended a lecture at the University of Miami, courtesy of Greg, and asked a question to the multimedia editor of the New York Times. I’ve taken a course in Flash journalism — thanks to Mindy — and read about the pros and cons of digital recorders — handy for the future, definitely. I’ve considered the effect of the media blackout in Gaza thanks to insight (and links to other opinions, let’s not forget) from Adrian Monck. I’ve discovered some nifty resources for following breaking news thanks to 10,000 Words. That’s one hell of an education.
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Posted in Blogs, Comment, Ethics, My Work, New Zealand, Social Networking, Student Journalism, The Web
Tags: adrian monck andrew devigal education greg linch mindy mcadams new york times paul bradshaw richard keeble university of lincoln university of miami