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Teaching JournalismA powerful metaphor for verificationemerged during a discussion of HurricaneKatrina. According to one erroneousnews account, the bodies of 40dead citizens had piled up in a freezerat the Morial Convention Center. Thereporter based his story on secondhandinformation from two NationalGuardsmen. In his subsequent meaculpa, the reporter regretted neverlooking inside for himself. Studentsseized on the image and suggested anew rule for news consumers. Beforebelieving any story, always ask, “Didthe reporter open the freezer?”Student evaluations have been largelypositive. In a story in The New YorkTimes one sophomore said,” I think Ilearned more skills that I’m going touse for the rest of my life than I did inany other course in college.”Our work has just begun. With thehelp of a $1.7 million grant from theJohn S. and James L. Knight Foundation,we launched a program this fall toteach News Literacy to 10,000 studentsduring the next four years. The Knightgrant also will allow us to test over timewhether the course makes a significantdifference in their academic, professionalor personal lives. And in May,Kenny established a national Center forNews Literacy at the School of Journalism.Its goal is to extend our missionto other universities, high schools, andeven the general public.Needless to say, I never finishedcleaning out the basement. Howard Schneider is dean of theSchool of Journalism at Stony BrookUniversity.Start Earlier. Expand the Mission. IntegrateTechnology.A journalism professor offers a fresh approach to training journalists alongside thosewho consume news and one day might publish it.By Kim PearsonMost journalism majors don’tbecome journalists, but mostjournalists are graduates ofjournalism programs. This means thathow educators approach the preparationof students in this digital age willshape journalism’s future direction insignificant ways. And in this transformationaltime for journalism, what is bestrepresented by a liberal arts educationneeds to be placed front and centerso those who become journalists willbe, at their core, ready to act as intellectuallysophisticated producers anddisseminators of information.Sensing this need, the Knight Foundationand Carnegie Corporation ofNew York sponsored blue-ribbon conferencesand demonstration projectsaimed at reshaping undergraduate andgraduate-level journalism programs.In May 2006, they issued a progressreport entitled “Journalism’s Crisis ofConfidence: A Challenge for the NextGeneration.” 1 It stressed the need forcurricula to ensure that aspiring journalistsbe educated to become worldlyintellectuals who retain the commontouch necessary to reach audiencesin an evolving media landscape ofalmost infinite complexity. With thisin mind, a few programs, such as ColumbiaUniversity’s Graduate School ofJournalism, Northwestern University’sMedill School, and USC Annenberg’sSchool for Communication, are in theprocess of designing enhanced curriculaand joint degree opportunitieswith other departments and schools.In September 2006, a task force of theAssociation for Education in Journalismand Mass Communication reportedon the state of its affiliated doctoralprograms, 2 and spoke to the need forimproving theoretical engagementwith key issues and smoother integrationof communications researchinto craft-focused undergraduate andmaster’s-level courses.Neither report sheds much light onexactly how the suggested approacheswill prepare journalists to deal withthe enormous challenges and opportunitiesof the digital age. Nor is muchattention paid to assessing the rolesjournalists or journalism educatorsmight play in shaping the technologicaland economic frameworks in whichnewsgathering will be practiced. Andno consideration is given to what journalismeducation might do at the precollegelevel to promote news literacyamong children who spend increasing1www.carnegie.org/pdf/journalism_crisis/journ_crisis_full.pdf2www.aejmc.org/_scholarship/_publications/_resources/_reports/taskforcereport_06.pdf68 Nieman Reports / Fall 2007