New.Journalism.Review

This semester has been absurdly and stupidly busy. And I've not even looked at the marking yet. Thankfully, the new and converged journalism degree seems to have gone down very well with the students. .

Just one problem:
A new degree structure x new units x increased teaching hours

           = zero time to reflect or do anything else ..like write, for instance.

We're also taking the students to New York in January, which is very exciting for all concerned.We hope to get them to NYU. So if I can take this opportunity to make a rather cheeky public appeal to Dean Olsher and Jay Rosen …..it would wonderful to meet up! (hint!, hint!).

(Lets hope, with some careful tagging, my appeal will make it on to Google!)

This is old news, but Zoe Corbyn wrote an excellent feature on academics who blog in the Times Higher - By the blog: academics tread carefully (October 2008).

Scroll down the article, stop about halfway and stuck between Zoe Brigley of Northampton University and David Petley of Durham, you can read about this blog!

Zoe's article outlines the key reasons why academics blog, which I have roughly summarised here (based on the main article and comments beneath it):

• Test area – float ideas or reflect when preparing papers and lectures etc.
• Obtain Feedback – from students, colleagues and others.
• Enhance reputation -People use blogs for a bit of personal online marketing, although that can also help their university or college.
• 'A day in the life' / diary - explain what it is like to  work as a scientist in a lab – if that's what you do.
• Accessibility – open up a subject / specialism. Some departments do this in a formal way to engage with A Level students and hopefully recruit.
• Personal reminder  – to record key events in the blogger's day or life.
• Feeds directly into teaching – many universities encourage students to blog /reflect online.

This list could  apply to just about anyone who has ever blogged, if you just remove the educational stuff. But there is an interesting debate about how much you reveal in the public space, particularly when it comes to scientific research. Research in the arts tends not to be so lucrative or competitive  – so nobody seems to give a toss if academics in the arts give away all the great 'secrets' for free (not that there are many!).

The article also states that there isn't really a community of 'academic bloggers' , as people seem to stick to their own subject fields. Most academics read blogs written by those in industry, as well as those in their field of education.

My ever-increasingly-long list of articles that I have starred in my Google Reader using my phone reflects this. It tells me I read a wide mix of journalism academics such as Paul Bradshaw and  Andy Dickinson.net in the UK (these have both set the standard in academic blogging and really should have made it into the THE feature), those written by full-time hacks like Martin Stabe, Charles Arthur and Neil McIntosh and those about IT and gadgets in general. These blogs (and, of course, many others) remind me of interesting developments that I really MUST discuss with the students.

I try to encourage our level 1 journalism students to  blog. This is important for many reasons, not least it acts as a showcase for their journalistic masterpieces which can be viewed by potential employers. Unfortunately, this advice often falls on deaf ears. And blogging should never be forced on anyone!

But Robert Clarke, a first year student and games journalist, heard my cry and set up In Solent 2008. It provides a 'student-eye' account of the BA Journalism course. It's well-written and shows signs of some great reflection on learning. It's well worth a read.

Getting a job in MSM

As this blog has mentioned before, entrepreneurial students should look to set up their own news sites and blogs. Most students will seek work in MSM (mainstream media) when they leave university, but I hope some will consider a more interesting direction and try setting up their own media brands.

I'm not the only person to observe that individual journalist's names are now seen as 'multimedia brands'. This has been going on in the US for many years – CNN has Larry King and Anderson Cooper 360. Fox News and MSNBC has their own lot. These big hitters are promoted on billboards, websites and in supermarket tabloids up-and-down the country.

A journalist's name = 'multimedia brands'

In the UK, Sky News promotes the heck out of its on-screen talent. But the BBC has traditionally kept its news 'talent' in their place. No Jeremy Paxman 360. No Big Crunch Live
with 'housewives favourite', Robert Peston (BBC business editor). On-screen talent should never become 'bigger' than the TV or radio channels they work for. (The Andrew Marr Show is probably the exception). These days, the BBC promotes some blogs. Robert Peston has his  BBC blog promoted on-air  – bbc.co.uk/robertpeston.
A massive hit with British housewives, it has become so popular it has
been blamed for causing City jitters.

Of course the Sky News approach is right and the BBC is increasingly looking out of touch in this platform world where cross marketing is king. Bearing in mind that many journalists spend much of their time a) freelancing and b) writing across media platforms – it makes sense that they will seek to promote themselves to get new contracts and win audiences. 

Internet identity

And any new student who is looking to make a name for themselves needs to be producing work of a consistently high standard and they must get it online. They don't need an expensive agent, but they should indulge in some not-so-shameless online marketing. A blog, a LinkedIn page, a personal website,  and postings to other respected blogs should do the trick to get any budding journalist listed on Google. It also seems pretty essential to register your name as a .com. (See Ways to Establish an Internet Identity).

If you have a really common name, as I do, then you may want to adopt a pen name (it helps with the Google rankings).  It's not difficult, but it does seem that only the really entrepreneurial journalism students are getting the message.

It’s a lovely sunny day and I’m feeling happy, but I  took a deep breath and mentally prepared myself to feel miserable before reading Paul’s post [Should journalism degrees still prepare students for a news industry that doesn’t want them? | Online Journalism Blog] .

Paul’s question is highly controversial and, of course, the responses make for very interesting reading.

One thing that dominates a lot of journalism degrees is the philosophy that journalism is a profession and only the ‘pros’ can do it well. It’s this kind of arrogance that needs to change. Courses need to be far more inclusive.

I agree with Paul’s view that students often come in with a ‘mono-media’ view of working in the industry. We’ve just ‘re-valed’ our degree at Solent and hopefully, with the new structure, we’ll beat this kind of thinking out of students [not literally] at level 1!

Kevin Anderson’s view on changing ‘mindshift’  is important. I may want to show his YouTube video to my class – it seems quite important.

I also totally agree with Alison.  On the positive side, students have this amazing  opportunity to create their own brands online. Eventually, if they wish, they will seek jobs in MSM or perhaps not.  Well-known journalists seem to be becoming multimedia  brands themselves. They are bigger than the newspapers and websites that they write for.

Our new BA (Hons) Journalism degree structure has got the official stamp(s) of approval and is set to launch in October [2008].

We spent a lot of time trying to understand the changes which have occurred in the industry and what it means to our students. The new degree has convergence journalism at its heart and this has required a far more integrated approach to teaching.

When it comes to technology, to paraphrase a speech by the BBC’s Kevin Marsh,“you don’t need to be right, just be ready.” I like the sound of that approach. We don’t know exactly where things are going in the industry, but I think we’re on the right lines now. Our students will be much better prepared for entry into the industry.   

A few reflective points:

Here are a few reflective thoughts about the process…

1) Convergence journalism IS happening: Yes sir! Sounds pretty basic, but some people still seem to think that it’s some kind of blip. We’ll somehow return to a time when people only get content from the newspaper or radio. Normal service WON’T be resumed soon! It won’t ‘settle’. Most UK media companies run converged operations. It may not be quite as advanced as what is happening in the US media, but even the smallest local village paper normally has a web site. If they have a web site then there is usually a desire to integrate (even if it’s just to save money). Social media, crowd sourcing…these are not just buzzwords.

2) ‘Online journalism’ versus ‘convergence’: There is a difference! All students need skill in convergence/multimedia. We kept online journalism as an option. Read on for more…

3) The old pathways remained: Initially there was an idea to have a separate online journalism pathway (possibly even an entirely separate degree!). This would be a mistake.It was decided to keep two pathways at L2 and L3 -  ‘print’ and ‘broadcast’. It would have certainly been easier to simply add a new pathway for online (in terms of timetabling), but that would be a non-converged approach. We decided that convergence had to be embedded into the existing print and broadcast pathways.

4) Students can still specialise: We want students to be able to operate in a multimedia and multi-platform way, but we were not creating ‘jack  hacks of all trades’. Students must have competent multimedia skills, but we kept the specialist teaching in the pathways and options. It’s pretty obvious that good research, interview, reporting and editing skills are as important as ever. You don’t want to do anything to damage the teaching of  the sacred cows.

5) Have something to converge with: You have to worry about those courses based around single media ( like all those NCTJ pre-entry courses). How can they teach multimedia? We already gave students flexibility

6) Some software is non-converged: Students get teaching in a range of industry standard software, like : Quark,
InDesign, Photoshop, FinalCutPro etc. But some of this software is pretty non-converged [take a look at Quark]. Adobe products are better because they have been built around the ‘web workflow’. There is a whole new raft of software that needs to be looked at for internet publishing. New content management systems etc.

7) Visual skills are really important: Students often think they are on a writing course, but they need to understand how content is presented in linear and non-linear ways and the role of images. Audiences need help in navigating their way through vast amounts of information slush. Students need skills in managing content in different formats.

A few challenges still needing to be faced:

There is a lot more than this, but what the heck…..

1) Closer links with the computing courses: The design director of NYTimes.com  [see the full post here]  explained what he looked for in an ideal candidate (it makes for quite a list): XHTML, CSS,
JavaScript, Flash and a “commercially viable comfort level
with database and application programming”. Wooooooah!. With the exception of some Flash, we don’t teach this stuff in the arts faculty. But I am guessing there are specialists in the computing faculty who are experts in this. Cross-faculty links can be tricky to arrange, but we need to do it. 

2) Mobile: Will this eventually become a significant platform for media consumption? Mentions of mobile are a little absent from the unit descriptors that I wrote! 

3) Web First?: I’m slightly skeptical about this. How many ‘newspapers’ are really operating in a ‘web first’ way? Come the big story, don’t  we always save it for the paper version or broadcast? 

4) Getting students to take multimedia seriously: It can no longer play second fiddle to the perceived ‘glamour’ of print or TV!

There are some links and journal articles that influenced the thinking about convergence and I will list these soon. I will also be blogging about how I am getting on writing the new Inside Multimedia News course material and New Media contexts stuff. Speaking of which, I better get on with it…