Teaching JournalismPushing and Prodding Latin American JournalismSchools to ChangeA Colombian journalist makes it more likely that students will learn how to ‘thinkonline’ so they will be prepared to enter the job market in this digital era.By Guillermo FrancoNot too long ago, C. Max Magee,when he was a graduate studentat Northwestern <strong>University</strong>’sMedill School of Journalism, focusedhis research for his master’s degreeprogram on the topic of “The Roles ofJournalists in Online Newsrooms.” 1 Itwas an attempt, Magee explains, “todefine which skills and intangible characteristicsare most important in onlinenewsrooms.” His findings came fromonline surveys he conducted in 2005with 438 people who work for onlinenews sites. His goal was to identify “theskills and characteristics that hiringmanagers are looking for” and also tolearn what online journalists need toknow and do in the context of theirtypical workday.Magee’s survey identified 35 skillsthat he divided into four categories:1. Attitudes and Intangibles2. Editing and Copyediting Skills3. Content Creation4. Online Production ToolsDespite his precise recording of thecomparative usefulness of each of theseskills—and his helpful assessment ofhow and why many “old” skills still mattergreatly—what Magee learned fromonline journalists is that the technicalaspects of their work are not whatsets them and their work apart fromthose working in “old media.” Insteadit is “a different way of thinking” thatis characterized by “a willingness tolearn new things, multitasking andteamwork.” When summed up, theonline journalists’ attributes amountedto the ability to “think online,” pairedwith convincing “others to do thesame.” It is these qualities that thosewho are hiring journalists for onlinemedia are seeking in applicants whocome their way.To think about Magee’s findings—and his conclusions—is to challengesome of the ways in which our universitiesand graduate school programsin Colombia, and in the rest of LatinAmerica, now approach the teachingand training of future journalists. It’svery clear from studies such as this one(and other less rigorous ones conductedin Latin America) that students need tobecome actively engaged with onlinejournalism. This means not only encouragingthem to immerse themselvesin what it is producing but also to helpthem analyze what they are reading andseeing and hearing. Additionally, theyactually need to be producing it as partof their classroom experience.Yet little of this appears to be happeningin many of the 1,300 communicationand journalism schoolsthat exist throughout Latin America.Financial considerations—figuring outhow to get the highest possible incomefrom students—has convinced manyprograms on this continent to offercertificates and postgraduate studyprograms with pompous names anddubious quality without touching theundergraduate programs, which iswhere education designed to promote“digital thinking” should start.One problem in having this happenis that to develop these online competencieswould mean that many journalismprograms would need to redefinetheir academic curricula. And this taskwould reside with scholars who, for themost part, are not prepared to do whatis necessary to push their programsinto the digital age. Often today, thestudents criticize their professors andadministrators for not having contactwith the “real” world of journalism, andthis criticism is aimed at their separationeven from traditional media.Another consequence of gaining thislevel of understanding about onlinejournalism is knowing that when studentsleave journalism programs thenewsrooms they enter—if they evenenter a newsroom at all—will definejobs in new ways. And the roles theyassume are likely to be expanded asopportunities for serving other communities—suchas online social groupsand niche audiences—evolve. Job opportunitiesmight also open up at Websites looking for people to “managecontent” in order for them to sell theirproducts or services through the Webor to figure out how to use content incorporate Intranets, to mention a fewpossible directions.The emerging journalist’s multimediaabilities should go hand-in-handwith the spirit of an entrepreneur,and the attributes of entrepreneurshipshould be nurtured at college,too. Given the kind of less structuredenvironment in which these graduateswill be working in the future, acquiringthese skills would provide morecomfort for them in taking risks as theycreate new ways of distributing whatthey produce.1http://journalist.org/news/archives/MedillOnlineJobSurvey-final.pdf88 <strong>Nieman</strong> Reports / Fall 2007
Digital DemandsI share my pessimistic perspectivewith other journalists in Latin America,including my El Tiempo colleagueJulio César Guzmán, with whom Ipublished “The State of Online Journalismin Latin America” in 2004. 2 In ourresearch, more than half of the LatinAmerican journalists who respondedto our survey told us that the quality ofavailable journalism schools’ academicprograms were not good enough. Also,77 percent of those surveyed said thatthe biggest need in terms of trainingwas to teach students how to createmultimedia content; 17 percent indicatedthat the second most importantneed was how to write for the Internet.(Those who responded to our surveyincluded journalists responsible forthe Web edition at 43 of the most importantnewspapers in Latin America.)In the 2007 version of our report,which will soon be published on thePoynter Institute’s Web site, journalistsinsist again on the need for additionaltraining for students while they are atschool; these newsroom leaders alsotell us that at least 55 percent of thoseworking in online operations for themajor Latin American newspapers donot have formal training in onlinejournalism.Another frequent approach in thisregion—one to be avoided since itonly reminds the next generation ofhow bonded we are to the old wayof doing things—is the strategy ofusing patches, of adding an electivehere and an elective there. Instead,entire programs must be completelyredesigned. Those who advocate thepatch-here-patch-there approach tendto be the academics in Latin America;these are the same people who arguethat this new direction in journalists’training—whose strongest advocatesare often from the United States—isnot valid here because our context istotally different from that in developedcountries. They contend, for instance,that Latin America has a relative lowrate access to the Internet or that interestin news at all is concentrated inthe smaller realm of the higher socialclasses.As journalists we insist on the importanceof looking at this <strong>issue</strong> withits globalized context. What is goingon now in more developed countriesis showing us a path that sooner orlater we will have to walk—and toprepare students now is our role andour responsibility.‘We Media’—in SpanishIn February of 2004 the Spanish editionof “We Media: How AudiencesAre Shaping the Future of News andInformation” was posted online. 3 I wasinvolved in its translation, which I feltwas important so that Spanish-speakingjournalists could have access tothe kind of information about onlinejournalism that English-speaking audienceshave been able to absorb. Andthis report offers plenty of evidenceof why and how the Internet poses abig challenge to journalism schoolsin Latin America. But it also is a greatopportunity for those who work atthese schools to increase their level ofunderstanding by gaining this accessto material otherwise unavailable tothem.Commissioned by The Media Centerat the American Press Institute, “We Media”can now serve as a textbook aboutonline journalism at many schoolswhere classes are taught in Spanish. Accordingto its authors, Shayne Bowmanand Chris Willis, the Spanish versionhas been downloaded almost 100,000times since it was posted—more timesthan the English version.The reasons for its online success—dueto it being free and availablein Spanish—speak to yet anotherdifficult circumstance of manyjournalism schools in Latin America:their dependence on expensive andoutdated course books. The reason:Spanish-speaking journalism programsdo not represent an attractive marketfor book publishers who specialize inthese topics, and the few translatedversions there are take too long toreach our students. And this lag timeis especially dramatic when it comesto receiving current information aboutthe Internet, new media, online journalism,or convergence. Though fewacknowledge it, especially at journalismschools, language becomes agreat barrier to accessing availableinformation. The development ofand the most vigorous debate aboutjournalism’s digital challenge is happeningand being documented mostfully in English.To try to repeat the successful experienceof “We Media,” a Spanish versionof the manual “How to Write for theWeb,” a 300-page handbook, will bepublished and will be available forfree at El Tiempo’s Web site, 4 whichis the leading Web site in Colombia.It provides a good balance of theory,research and real-world examples.While these are examples of stepsthat can and are being taken in Colombia,it is important to point outthat the developed world could—andshould—make a greater effort to shareits knowledge about journalism withthose in the developing world and doso in languages that aren’t English.This would be a good start towardprodding our universities and journalismprograms to move out of the 20thcentury and teach our students for thejobs they will find as the 21st centurymarches on. Guillermo Franco, a 2006 <strong>Nieman</strong>Fellow, is content manager of newmedia at Casa Editorial El Tiempoand editor of Eltiempo.com in Colombia.He has been a professor inpostgraduate journalism programsand lecturer on online journalism.2www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=645323www.hypergene.net/wemedia/espanol.php?id=P644www.eltiempo.com<strong>Nieman</strong> Reports / Fall 2007 89