The Future of Journalism

The Poynter Institute ran a story from the dean of the University of Southern California, which you can read here:
http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=169115&sid=59

Following is my response to this illogical drivel–a column Poynter declined to run:

Rakiya Wallace tromped through Strawberry Mansion, one of the poorest neighborhoods of Philadelphia. It was bitingly cold. Her nose was red and sore from the wind assaulting it. Every breath she took fogged her glasses. An African 
American in a predominantly African-American neighborhood, she was avoided and told: “You don’t belong here. Go back to where you’re from.” She described her experience as being “ uninvited.”

Three months later, after visiting churches, stopping at community centers and talking with the residents of Strawberry Mansion, Wallace found that she was finally invited. “My dislike for this place came from rejection and fear. What kept me from experiencing and understanding the people here was my inability to connect and to understand. As people, as humans, we all share some common ground. After I understood this, I sought out to find it in the people I talked to. And with time, they wanted to talk to me and they trusted me with their stories,” she wrote.

Wallace is one of the 160 students who report each year about under-covered neighborhoods throughout Philadelphia for www.philadelphianeighbors.com, the capstone course for all journalism undergraduate majors at Temple University. Strawberry Mansion is one of nearly 20 neighborhoods where students practice their skills in multimedia journalism and have done so for the past five years.

Ernest Wilson, the dean at the University of Southern California, wrote an analysis for PoynterOnline in which he asked why journalism academics are not players in the current debate about the future of the media, citing why none was invited to testify before a recent congressional hearing on the subject held by U.S. Sen. John Kerry. I will leave aside the problems involved in journalists testifying before Congress, but I would argue that Rakiya Wallace could more accurately represent what she has learned about the future of journalism than most academics, including Wilson.

In his article for Poynter, the USC dean wonders what students should be accepted and what should be taught. At programs like Temple and other schools not considered among the top journalism programs in the nation, the faculty has seen what is necessary to adapt to the changing environment of journalism today. Simply put, many of the esteemed programs throughout the country have failed to adapt to the changing media landscape—much like the major media institutions because of institutional inertia. At Temple, however, the faculty introduced a multimedia program seven years ago in which all students, irrespective of their interests in broadcasting, magazines, photography or newspapers have been required to take courses in audio, design, video and multimedia production—as well as the ethical, legal and historical aspects of all media.

Wilson offers a variety of suggestions. “The teaching profession needs to admit the extraordinary urgency of our situation. Simply put, we adapt or we die,” the dean argues. At Temple and other institutions—not among the “top tier” of journalistic programs—that has already happened. We decided long ago to adapt with innovative programs that other big-name institutions failed to embrace—akin to the problems that the mainstream media also failed to embrace. At the University of South Carolina, the other USC, Professor Augie Grant has convened eight years of conferences on convergence and society that focus precisely on most of the issues Wilson raises. The latest one will be held in November in Reno—not too far from Los Angeles. I would suggest that Dean Wilson try to attend. I plan to do so.

“What we teach and how we teach needs to be deeply
informed by more regular conversations with practitioners. Journalism
professors need to reach out more systematically to media professionals in the
new and the legacy media,” he adds. At Temple, we have a constant and continual conversation with media professionals, including the adjuncts from local newspapers, magazines and television outlets we employ. Temple holds a variety of seminars that bring together students and professionals involved in all aspects of media, including the future of the profession. These seminars have included representatives of the New York Times, NBC News, the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, and various multimedia pioneers. Moreover, we teach students about the entrepreneurial aspects of the business. As a result, a variety of students have launched their own successful online publications.

“The academy must begin to produce more high-quality, relevant
research that draws on rigorous traditions in the social sciences,” Wilson says.
At Temple, our faculty has produced some of the most important research on the economics of journalism, including social media, one of the areas Dean Wilson suggests as important. Furthermore, the department has engaged in a wide-ranging program in Philadelphia high schools to enhance writing and media literacy.

Wilson ends his analysis with some sweeping predictions about opportunities or potential doom. “Finally, our profession needs to raise its sights much higher and link our
teaching and research to broad issues of media, democracy and societal
changes, and eschew the self-referential, inward-looking focus that marks too
many academic exercises,” he writes. “The leadership of journalism and communications schools must step forward with a more coherent, sweeping vision of what our profession can become, and mobilize the non-stop vitality that the current crisis demands of us.
Done properly, we can help our students and the public interest. If we fail, then
like much of the media industry today, journalism schools will continue a long,
slow descent into less and less relevance for addressing the major issues of our
time.” His observations may be true. That’s why we started to deal with them a long time ago at Temple.

My suggestion to Dean Wilson is that he needs to do some reporting, like that of Rakiya Wallace, before pontificating about what occurs in other journalism schools. If he looked around at some innovative programs throughout the nation, he wouldn’t be so pessimistic about the future of journalism and the academic programs that are producing the next generation of reporters and editors.