Are Journalism Schools Only Good for Ethics?

By Paul Mihailidis on 05/14/2009

In the second episode of the IFC Media Project, Season Two, host Gideon Yago begins his narration in front of the famed Columbia University Journalism School. Within his first few sentences, Yago insightfully notes that anyone with a phone is a photojournalist and that a new blog is created every nano-second (facetious for sure...). Such observations are used to hint at the current state of journalism education, which Yago calls essentially useless, but for it's goal to teach the future journalists of an information age about ethics and accuracy in reporting.

This introduction gives way to some interesting takes into tabloid journalism, the Iraq shoe throwing journalist, and things we all hate about cable news. Interestingly however, Yago's introduction hit upon an interesting point not discussed again in the episode: do we need to train journalists in anything but ethics?

The quick demise of the newspaper industry has thrown the old guard into a tizzy. While most think about the death of investigative reporting, the youth of the information age are exploring new ways to become informed, active and participatory citizens in an information age. This has shifted the playing field for who we consider journalists, and what we consider journalism.

So are we all journalists? Do we all have authoritative voices? What is the use in getting trained to be a journalist? Yago had it partly write: ethics. Journalism schools are now caught in a trap between catering to the new media technologies that require unique skill sets, and the need--perhaps now more than ever--to train our future media practitioners in the art of independent, diverse, and credible storytelling.

Attempting to define the contours of journalism is a self-defeating task, and one often engaged in too much in the classroom. Rather, journalism education is at a unique point in it's history: it must convey the principles of ethics in a way that is engaging, enlightening, and relevant to students will to carry the torch of journalism into the future.

In this way, journalism education must provide a balance between technology and constructive inquiry. As media technologies become more user-friendly, journalism schools will need to revert even more to teaching about the standards of accuracy and neutrality in a digital age. So while some may think the camera phone has made journalism education less relevant, I think the exact opposite. In this digital and user-powered media environment, journalism schools are perhaps now more important than at any point in the past.

They must teach journalists, and citizens, why they must remain true to the ethical pillars of their trade, because in today's hyper media climate, it's harder and harder to discern the pioneering journalist from the pandering thinker.

(And for the record, the News Junkie got it wrong when lamenting twitter and facebook in news. In this age, news is only as worthy as it's audience. There is no going back, and the news junkie needs to get with the times).

["Class", University of Nevada, 2007; "School", Nymag.com, 2006]