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Digital Demandsclass and a magazine editing classwork in teams across course lines.• Our business journalism professorwrites a popular blog and is acontributing editor and columnistfor a monthly magazine, BusinessNorth Carolina. In his classes, studentsthink and work across mediaplatforms.• A professor who teaches editingexplores alternative story forms;he works with the Poynter Instituteusing new curricula to assess theirimpact.• One of our design professors iscoauthor of a column on digitaldesign for the University of SouthernCalifornia Annenberg’s OnlineJournalism Review.• Broadcast students stream theirnewscasts on the Web.• A professor’s advanced design studentsdo readability and eye-trackingtests for a new Web design at anearby television station.Research done by our graduatefaculty reflects the new communicationslandscape but also emphasizesthe ongoing study of journalism historyand law—traditional strengthsof our school. In the midst of rapidchange, graduate inquiry into whathas happened in the past, as well asthe legal environment of this practice,contributes to shaping—and not justreacting to—the emerging digital era.This year we also will add a seniorperson to our faculty who specializesin digital media economics.Just as 19th century pioneers atWashington and Lee led the way intouncharted academic territory, journalismeducators today are responsible forhelping their students navigate throughthis territory of upending change. Myadvice is this: While we find ways tointegrate new skills into our teaching,let’s be sure to keep our eye squarelyon what has remained a stationarygoal—to have students leave our classroomswith the wisdom and skills theyneed to provide citizens with accurateand credible information.The digital revolution, wherever ittakes us, will not erase the need foreducated professionals whose workis trusted by readers and viewers. Thenews may come to us in amazing ways.It may look different. Citizens who arenot professional journalists might helpconstruct it. It might be mixed with athousands bits and bytes of random andeven entertaining information. Establishingtrust with readers and viewers isas important in digital journalism as itwas before the telegraph was invented.The next generation of journalistswill engage a host of new challengesand opportunities, some of which wewill likely be unable to foresee. Butaccuracy and credibility should neverfeel like outmoded ideals. Passing ontools to keep those principles at thecore of journalistic practice remainsour greatest responsibility. Jean Folkerts is dean of the Universityof North Carolina at Chapel HillSchool of Journalism and Mass Communication.Prior to her appointmentin 2006, she was professor ofmedia and public affairs and associatevice president for special academicinitiatives at George WashingtonUniversity. Before entering highereducation, Folkerts was a generalassignment reporter for The TopekaCapital-Journal and an editor andwriter at other publications.Teaching What We Don’t (Yet) KnowA course about change becomes a constant work in progress as it looks to thenewsrooms, audiences and forms of the future.By Mark J. PrendergastThe core question as I movedfrom newsroom to classroomlast year was what should Iteach? After a 30-year newspaper career,the temptation was to dip intothe well of experience to pass on thetime-honored skills of our craft. Butthat approach didn’t feel right at a timeof such tumult. So at the suggestion ofOhio University’s E.W. Scripps Schoolof Journalism, where I had accepteda visiting professorship after 13 yearsas an editor at The New York Times, Ideveloped an experimental, forwardlookingseminar I called “Journalismin Transition.”Inspired by research I had recentlydone for my master’s degree at ColumbiaUniversity, it was intended as atimely look at where we are and wherewe may be headed. But at its heart, thesyllabus overlaid traditional journalisticvalues onto new-media realities ofthe sort I had encountered on the TimesContinuous News Desk, a pioneeringbridge between the paper’s newsroomand its Web site.The course began with readingsand discussion about the core questionsof who is a journalist and whatis journalism in a media universe inwhich anyone with a computer andaccess to the Internet has instant,global reach in reporting “news” andthe ability to claim the title “journalist.”In that spirit, we considered just what“truth” might be and how it shouldnot be assumed to be synonymouswith “facts.” We discussed objectivity,Nieman Reports / Fall 2007 75