What would the perfect j-school curriculum look like?

This exact question was posed at the Nextnewsroom conference I attended last week. Here’s how I responded. I think ethics are important, but there needs to be more of an emphasis on on-line ethics. Future reporters need to be taught and understand repercussions of publishing anything on-line that could later come back and compromise their perceived objectivity. All journalists need to learn how to shoot video and how to edit it. I don’t think a strong emphasis needs to be placed on any one type of software because so many newsrooms use different things. But so long as reporters leave school understanding the rule of thirds and how to edit a basic package of shots and audio, that will help tremendously. WRITING. A stronger emphasis needs to be placed on writing for various mediums, web, print, broadcast. No longer can you specialize in one or the other. You need to know how to write in present and past tense and do it effectively. These are just the absolute basics that I feel j-schools need to begin incorporating and improving in order to help the future “generalist”.

I think a course on the internet would be damned important. Not just how it works, but how search engines work, SEO, blogging, Digg, community building, all things to get your writing visible. There is so much content that unless you really understand how to promote yourself, you could be the best journalist in the world and never be read simply because you don’t understand the mechanisms used to get your writing widely distributed (more than via your employer).

Two things I would have students doing from the beginning:

Blogging. Whether posting essays or just links, there’s no better prep for understanding different publishing strategies and what can be done online.
Some extra, not-strictly-journalism skill. A language, some programming, database reporting, a deep-rooted knowledge of one or two subject areas (business, environment, China, etc).

Figure that’s a good prep for journalism with skills to go in another direction if desired.

Hi,
You gave the right answer to your question just a few days ago when you said “Journalism students need to know business.”
http://patthorntonfiles.com/blog/?p=231
If I were setting out to design a j-school curriculum, the first thing I’d do is include a course in business finance.

Entrepreneurship and journalism. Newsroom management (for the newsroom of the future). Backpack journalism (creating multimedia packages + a story).

Business/entrepreneurship
CMS (WordPress, Drupal, Blogger, etc)
Reporting: Day one stories, long-form, etc,
Community building: Web 2.0 social networking, wikis, citizen journalism, etc
Multi-Media: Video, Audio, Flash, Photos
Theory: Objectivity, changing media, etc.

Your basic curriculum is basically waht I graduated doing in 2004. I would def add a required technology class where students are taught the basics of html, a little blogging, multimedia, etc.

When i was in school, we were required to have an emphasis, which was anything from a enhanced minor to a custom set of classes we designed (someone did the simpsons’ influence on mass media)

Here’s what journalists need to know for now:

classic skills: interviewing, editing, researching, writing a story, photography, video shooting & editing, voice work, layout and design, media law

new media skills: blogging, design for the web, using web multimedia, business skills, ad sales

skills for the future: learn how to teach yourself new things, business skills for self promotion and self employment

So my curriculum would be: 15 x 3-credit hour classes: all required – none optional

News Writing 1 & 2, Layout & Design, Reporting (Interviewing & Research), Photography 1 & 2, Video Journalism 1 & 2, Media Law, Multimedia Journalism 1 & 2, Web Development for Journalists, Business for Journalists, Sales Basics for Journalists

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately and haven’t come to any firm conclusions. But the rough shape is something like this: a foundation year of courses in writing, reporting, investigative techniques, ethics, photography, media theory, multimedia journalism (all except writing at an introductory level. Writing needs to be hit hard).

Then a year of project-based, limited-term (3-4 weeks) courses, tied to committing real-world journalism. Meet, discuss, learn, and then go do it, whether it is “traditional” or “new.” Repeat as necessary, upping the skill level and the expectations with every project. Classes led by a mentor and skills taught by specialists as they are needed.

After that, pile on the academic courses students want to allow them to go deep in the areas they want, throw marketing, statistics, etc. into the mix and, under all that, continued journalism practice through the college newspaper.

As I said, the outlines are still vague and after seeing it written down, I already have some objections to some of my own ideas. This is a great mental exercise but still a work very much in progress.

Here are the requirements for the Photojournalism tracks at Western Kentucky University, where I attended:
http://www.wku.edu/Journalism/Photo/

They have two photo tracks, “newspaper” print photojournalism and new media publishing. You’ll want to scroll down to the bottom of the aforementioned link to view the new media track requirements. I took the new media publishing route.

The options in the new media route allowed me to study and prepare for print, radio, broadcasting, and web journalism all in one degree. I think this is essential, to prepare for any kind of media route. Media is converging.

I also minored in Entrepreneurship because I anticipated the collapse of the industry. Business classes I took that I think should be incorporated into journo programs include:

Advertising
Marketing
Economics
Entrepreneurial Business Management
Personal Finance
Accounting
Business and Professional Speaking
Business Law

For my New Media Publishing/Photojournalism Major, I took these classes which I would suggest for others:

Introduction to Digital Video
News Videography and Editing
Broadcasting Mass/Comm Law & Ethics
Web Publishing
Writing for TV and Radio
Newswriting
Public Affairs Reporting
Photojournalism
Intro to New Media
Lighting
American National Government
State and Local Government
Literary Journalism
Documentary Film/Cinema

Also outside of the Major/Minor I would suggest:

Psychology
Sociology
Social Work/Statistics
Anthropology
Geography
US History
Western Civilization
Environmental Science

Experimentation.

From someone in j-school right now…

Core curriculum would include: Reporting, editing (with a focus on self-editing), basic video/audio/photo course (with a specialized followup course for each), a course specifically designed to answer the question “what is news?”, public records, ethics, law of mass comm, online news & programming (whether they should be two courses is an exercise left to the reader), and databases.

Those would be a good start, though I know I’m leaving a lot out. Those courses would give students training in the whole spectrum of ways that they might have to produce packages.

There have been a lot of great suggestions, so I’ll just add one thing:

A basic storytelling class. This should be one of the first classes students are required to take and it would teach principles that can be applied to all platforms.

The most important thing is thics,no matter what kind of media our students will work.So i think the only course of thics cannot be omitted.