{"id":2110,"date":"2010-10-30T17:57:11","date_gmt":"2010-10-30T17:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/conference.journalists.org\/2010conference\/?p=2110"},"modified":"2010-10-30T17:57:11","modified_gmt":"2010-10-30T17:57:11","slug":"j-schools-redesigning-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ona10.journalists.org\/2010\/10\/30\/j-schools-redesigning-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"J-schools: Redesigning the future"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

From left, David Johnson, Mindy McAdams, Emily Bell, Richard Gordon share ideas about the future of J-schools. Photo by Nyssa Rabinowitz<\/p><\/div>\n

There\u2019s one thing to know about J-schools today, and it\u2019s not print or broadcast.<\/p>\n

Students instead should take an early introduction to multimedia course as part of their foundation in journalism, a panel of journalism professors said Saturday at the 2010 Online News Association Conference in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of these students think journalism is this bunch of text or bunch of still photos or holding a mic,\u201d said Mindy McAdams<\/a>, a journalist, journalism educator and Web developer at the University of Florida<\/a> for more than a decade. \u201cThey want to write or they want to shoot.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen is it they get shown that first multimedia course?\u201d she asked. \u201cThey need to see the package, the video.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey need to see that when they are still little green freshmen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem word may not be multimedia,\u201d said Richard Gordon from the Medill School of Journalism<\/a> at Northwestern University. \u201cIt may be journalism.\u201d<\/p>\n

We continue to think that journalism is just reporting and writing, Gordon said during a session titled \u201cRewiring the Ivory Tower.\u201d Instead, Gordon added, we should be seeing journalism as having three primary functions: storytelling, reporting and producing\/publishing, rather than print, broadcast and multimedia.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s this idea that you need to be good at something when you go out there because you can’t be good at 10 or 12 things,\u201d McAdams said. \u201cThat one thing that they need to be good at is not broadcast or print. It\u2019s video, shooting and studio. It\u2019s audio production; it\u2019s graphic design, data reporting, data analysis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose are the particular skills,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe journalist of the future doesn\u2019t upload a video to YouTube, they make YouTube,\u201d said moderator David Johnson from American University<\/a>. \u201cFacebook is the newstand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Universities have traditionally produced and refined student skills for the industry such as writing, said Emily Bell from Columbia University<\/a> and a former multimedia journalist at the Guardian in London. But academia hasn\u2019t led the industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cDigital media offers you the opportunity to do something that no one has done before,\u201d Bell said. But you can\u2019t get too caught up in it, she cautioned.<\/p>\n

Students need to be able to think, Bell continued. The tools are going to change, but students need to be able to think about these skills.<\/p>\n

Students should consider these multimedia courses as \u201cthe first year or two years of learning a skill that will be in constant evolution,\u201d Bell said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most important skill we teach you at the university is we teach you how to teach yourself,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWhat you buy yourself when you go to school is time to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n

But graduation does not mean that you are done learning, Gordon said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are never done learning,\u201d he emphasized.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s one thing to know about J-schools today, and it\u2019s not print or broadcast. Students instead should take an early introduction to multimedia course as part of their foundation in journalism, a panel of journalism professors said Saturday at the 2010 Online News Association Conference in Washington, D.C. \u201cMost of these students think journalism is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1838,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"start_time":0,"end_time":0,"moderators":[],"hashtag":[],"soundcloud":[],"scribble":[],"viafoura":[],"youtube":[],"vimeo":[],"facebook":[],"trint":[],"slideshare":[],"livestream":[],"resources":[],"video_embed":[],"first_name":"","last_name":"","title":"","organization":"","website":"","twitter":"","_sponsor_url":"","_sponsor_tagline":"","_sponsor_level":"","spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paaWrG-y2","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ona10.journalists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2110"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ona10.journalists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ona10.journalists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ona10.journalists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1838"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ona10.journalists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ona10.journalists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2110\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ona10.journalists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ona10.journalists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ona10.journalists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}