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Journalism Education
perament—seem innate. But I’ve found
in my teaching that these helpful attributes
can also be encouraged.
Any academic program requires intellectual
rigor and so does much of
journalism. Even though it’s hardly a
contemplative calling, there are times
and issues that seem to inspire our best
thinking. There are, for example, those
postmortems that occur when something
seems terribly wrong about how
a major story was covered. Sometimes,
after we’ve had a chance to reflect,
journalists do perform better when
similar situations arise.
A strong curriculum should imbue
students with the history and principles
of journalism, legal precedents
and pitfalls, ethical principles and dilemmas.
Students should engage in
reading about and intensely discussing
newsroom issues before they are faced
with split-second decisions on the job.
By using adjunct professors—often current
reporters or editors or producers—as
many journalism schools do,
faculty members’ expertise is complemented
with real-time, real-world experience.
Good journalism teachers
also help students become better, more
sophisticated news consumers.
Some of the more important lessons
are taught in the much-maligned “skills
courses.” Immediately, students write
on deadline, covering fires, crashes
and speeches. We mark up their copy
and challenge their selection of words.
We insist that they explain why they
organized the story the way they did
and help them see how their dependence
on one or two sources can skew
the coverage. We circle clichés and
circumlocutions, showing students
how such imprecision weakens their
writing. We let them know how a poorly
chosen adjective or descriptive phrase
can stereotype a community or people
who live in it. In more advanced
courses, we get students to explore
difficult topics in great depth, then we
ask them to write about this topic compellingly
in a 700-word column or editorial.
In narrative journalism classes,
some students write 5,000-word, professional-quality
pieces. A few of them
win awards, but seldom lead their authors
directly to the Atlantic Monthly.
Most of us would like to take more
time to study a subject in depth, and
this is a desire that a university can
fulfill. At Boston University, we offer
students this option through Advanced
Journalism Studies, a program I direct.
Graduate students and professional
journalists, working with faculty and
professional mentors, develop their
own specialized curricula and take advantage
of academic riches in other
schools and departments. These students’
focus varies from studies about
the Middle East to explorations of new
technologies, and they devote considerable
time to examining ways of reporting
on specific beats such as education,
religion or social issues. Others
work to develop their voices in narrative
journalism. We also have master’s
degree programs in business and economic
journalism and in reporting on
science and medicine.
Graduate school is very expensive,
in time spent away from work and cost
of the education. So we also provide an
intensive, skills-based practical program
for students who want to be general
assignment and feature reporters
for television, online and print news
organizations, and want to get these
new careers launched quickly. For
them, specialization might come later.
There is nothing wrong with periodic
reassessments of where journalism
education is and in what direction
it should be headed. But history also
should be heeded. Columbia has a
strong record of graduating students
who know what good journalism is
and how to do it. What shouldn’t be
allowed to happen is for a successful
program like this one to join the ranks
of the inchoate maw of mass communications.
Agnes Wahl Nieman, in endowing
the Nieman Foundation,
charged it to “… promote and elevate
the standards of journalism.” As professors
at journalism schools, that is
our mission as well. ■
Nancy Day, a 1979 Nieman Fellow,
is director of Advanced Journalism
Studies at Boston University and a
freelance editor and writer.
nday@bu.edu
Passing Along the Magic of Journalism
Journalism stands apart from other academic pursuits.
By Dale Maharidge
As New York City lay shrouded in
a black cloud that afternoon following
the World Trade Center
attack, a student came into my office at
Columbia University’s Graduate School
of Journalism and asked, “Does this
mean we’re not going to follow the
syllabus?”
You can guess my answer. The careful
plans of a writer, editor, or journalism
professor change in a nanosecond
with events. By its very nature, journalism
defies rules that govern other disciplines,
and this is why it’s dangerous
to change the fundamental way journalism
is taught—lots of reporting and
writing and honing of both abilities.
As a public debate emerges about
reshaping Columbia’s approach to
teaching journalism, there is something
of value that is getting lost—it’s the
magic of journalism. I recall the 1986
Argentinean film, “Man Facing Southeast,”
which is set in a psychiatric hos-
Nieman Reports / Winter 2002 109