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Teaching Journalism“next major battleground” for onlinespeech, in the view of Professor TimSmith. In the courtroom as well as thenewsroom, the news media landscapeis changing rapidly, so for students tosucceed, the classroom—and the universityin which it is embedded—mustchange as well. “If we want our kidsto be competitive, we need to preparethem for the world they are about toenter,” Smith says.In Kent State’s audience analysisclass, Professor Max Grubb’s studentsdon’t analyze only the TV Nielsen ratings,but they also examine the use ofthe Web. It’s no longer just about circulationand ratings. Grubb, who spent15 years on the sales/marketing side ofthe broadcast business, contends thatblogs, citizen journalism, and interactivityhave transformed the structure ofthe media business into what he callsthe “architecture of participation.”“As media professionals,” says Grubb,“our students need to understand andfacilitate rather than resist it.”Resisting ChangeCreative thinking consultant Rogervon Oech contends that nobody likeschange except a baby whose diaper iswet. Too many j-school students seemproof of that notion. Beginning this fallsemester, the j-school is moving intoa new building with wireless Internet,high-speed video servers, and a convergednewsroom. Student leaders areworking with faculty to develop theorganizational structure for studentmedia. At a recent planning meeting,one of our brighter and more talentedstudents listed a few potential stories,then asked the student from the schoolnewspaper what she would put on thefront page. He then posed the samequestion to the student representativefrom the TV station; how would shelead her newscast? He was demonstratingthe ways in which newspapers andbroadcast media approach the tellingof news differently. But nobody raisedany questions about how to cover thesestories for a multimedia Web site. Eachsaw coverage only from inside of hisor her own silo.Such attitudes spell doom—in contemporarynewsrooms and classrooms.“The more ostriches in your newsroomor on your faculty, the more likely yourorganization will quickly join the list ofendangered species,” Endres cautions.Amid the downsizing of newsroomsnow going on, even veteran journalistsare finding it essential to learnnew skills. And some are returning toschool to do so. Kent State’s graduatecoordinator, Von Whitmore, recognizesthat “graduate programs will have toadapt to this new demand by developingalternative ways for working professionalsto take classes [that] mustteach students about multiple platformcontent from the very first course in thecurriculum.” Graduate student SusanKirkman spent 20 years working as ajournalist at the Akron Beacon Journal,most recently as the managing editorfor multimedia and special projects.Kirkman’s advice to journalists formanaging change applies as much tonewsrooms as it does to journalismschools: “Figure out how to createcultures that support innovation.”This is the toughest challenge weface—given how difficult cultural shiftscan be to make within a university.“Some faculty will never be able to collaboratewith those in other disciplines;others will do so, but reluctantly,” saysEndres. “Still others, maybe a third ofcurrent faculties, will find the move outof silos to be exciting and invigorating.You can probably identify those facultymembers already. They’re the oneswith all the most forward thinking andaggressive students hanging aroundtheir offices.”Building a J-School FacultyIt’s impossible to teach what youdon’t know, yet learning new softwareprograms and developing multimediaskills requires the investment of time,resources and money. “It’s the trifectaof money, time and personnel,” saysWhitmore. “[But] foundation moneyfor journalism programs is shrinkingwhile federal and state supportfor higher education has all but vanished.”Without universities willing to bringin faculty members with the skillsand experience necessary to preparestudents to meet the rapidly changingdemands by getting rid of someacademic barriers—such as requiringfaculty members to have a PhD—journalismschools will remain on theprecipice of becoming irrelevant to theprofession. Editors are not determiningwhich stories to tell and how to tellthem by reading academic journals,yet universities reward publication ofsuch articles more highly than they doteaching or passing on cutting-edgemultimedia skills or figuring out howto get students to think creatively andbroadly about how journalistic valuesmesh with the changes brought aboutby technological progress.With this in mind, the requirementsposted in the advertisements in TheChronicle of Higher Education forjobs as j-school professors seem all themore troubling. Recently I checked 20of them, and all but one indicated thata PhD was required or preferred. Mostdid not require or give the preferrednumber of years of professional experience,though for one position the adstipulated two years of professionalexperience. (I certainly know howmuch I knew after only two years onthe job.)Why so little experience would bedeemed sufficient by any journalismprogram pinpoints a major disconnectbetween academia and the demands ofthe marketplace. Hiring someone toteach a reporting class who has neverreported is like signing up a doctorwho’s never been in the operatingroom to teach surgery, or asking alawyer who’s never had a client orfiled briefs or been in a courtroom toteach law. Educating journalists hasalways required more than an academicorientation—and this imbalance ofuniversity requirements vs. facultyrelevance has always been a part ofjournalism school’s uneasy fit insidethe academy. But today the fit isn’t justuneasy, it’s untenable.Universities will need to adapt ortheir j-schools will die of irrelevance.With soaring tuition costs, prospectivejournalists will refuse to waste time andmoney learning what they don’t need toknow while a glance over their shoulder64 Nieman Reports / Fall 2007