For years, journalism schools nationwide have been bulking up on courses designed to prepare the next generation of reporters for the brave new world of digital media. No longer is it enough for students to master writing, interviewing and editing; these days they must blog and design websites, shoot digital video and use Twitter.
But some journalists and educators alike are starting to wonder if lessons in the fundamentals of newsgathering are being pushed aside in favor of an ever-expanding array of tech-related classes.
Several recent developments have fueled these concerns:
• The University of Colorado at Boulder recently announced it was considering dismantling its 700-student journalism school and replacing it with an interdisciplinary "information and communication technology" program.
• The University of Montana journalism school this fall unveiled a new curriculum in which students seeking entry into the program must take tech-oriented classes like video production, but bedrock courses like public affairs reporting are no longer required.
Clearly, 21st-century newshounds need a broad range of skills. As University of Colorado Chancellor Philip DiStefano noted, "News and communications transmission as well as the role of the press and journalism in a democratic society are changing at a tremendous pace. We must change with it."
And Carol Van Valkenburg, chair of the University of Montana print journalism program, told the Missoulian newspaper she felt the changes would enhance the education her students receive, "not diminish it."
But most accredited undergraduate j-schools are limited in the number of journalism credits they can require a student to take. So as tech-related coursework is added, the emphasis on traditional journalism skills is bound to be watered down.
"You have to wonder how much you can cram in a curriculum without diluting the essentials," says Virginia Breen, a SUNY Purchase journalism professor and former New York Daily News reporter who worked with students in the "ABC News On Campus" program, which has set up bureaus at major j-schools around the country.
Breen says at the ABC program she saw many students with "incredible technical skills, but I did notice that a few required a surprising amount of guidance on journalism fundamentals."
Basic Skills Still in Demand
Fred Bayles, a former national correspondent for USA Today and The Associated Press, now runs the Statehouse Reporting Program at Boston University's journalism school. He says the skills taught in a traditional public affairs reporting course - coverage of beats like cops, courts and city council - are needed now more than ever.
"Based on what's going on here in Boston and other urban areas, the Montana decision is just plain wrong," Bayles says.
Ironically, Bayles says it's not just newspapers but the new hyperlocal news sites that are looking for students equipped with hard-news reporting skills.
"We've seen a huge burst in public affairs reporting with hyperlocal pages at the (Boston) Globe and now Patch.com," he says. "There is such a demand for those kinds of reporters that there are jobs sitting open and some organizations are paying bounties to help find reporters."
Indeed, an informal survey of a site like JournalismJobs.com bears this out. While there are plenty of openings requiring multimedia skills, there are just as many if not more jobs for candidates who can write and report and know AP style.
Too Much Emphasis on 'Bells and Whistles'
At Temple University in Philadelphia, Professor Linn Washington is co-director of the j-school's Multimedia Urban Reporting Lab, where students use high-tech tools to report on inner-city neighborhoods.
However, even Washington worries that "too much emphasis has been placed on the bells and whistles of technology and not on the fundamental purpose of journalism - to provide information to the public and to serve as a watchdog on government."
Technology, Washington notes, is always changing. "At one point the telegraph was critical to the news business, just as typewriters once were. We lose sight of what it is we're supposed to do in journalism and journalism education as we get bedazzled by the latest gizmos."
When she started teaching journalism at St. Edward's University in Texas three years ago, Jena Heath, a former editor and White House correspondent, revamped the school's curriculum to include multimedia training and established the student newspaper's first website.
But as Heath puts it, "If students don't know what a lede is, what difference does it make if they have a video camera in their hands?"
Heath says "while it's very important to teach students how to use these tools, I don't understand why it has to be one or the other. We're supposed to be training journalists, and these are just tools for the practice of journalism.
"You can learn to make a video, a podcast - it's not that hard," she adds. "But learning to keep your opinion out of stories, to turn in clean copy, to dig into public records - that's a lot harder."
Blending Technology Into Journalism Courses
University of Wisconsin-Madison journalism professor Stephen Ward says technology should be incorporated into traditional journalism courses, not replace them.
And as j-schools face mounting pressure to add more and more tech training to the curriculum, it's critical that they clearly define their mission, he adds.
"Journalism schools should be creating a new generation of responsible communicators," Ward says. "If we go to the route of defining journalism programs totally in terms of technology and entrepreneurialism then we're abandoning the core of what universities should be doing."
In the end, it may be the students themselves who rebel against the glut of tech training.
In a column for the Badger Herald student newspaper, UW-Madison journalism student Jake Begun criticized the University of Colorado. Sounding very much like an old-school traditionalist, Begun wrote that if the university's journalism program is dismantled it should be done "with a continued commitment to producing informed and skilled professionals rather than jumping on the flashy new media bandwagon."
