Donica Mensing presented an interesting paper at Future of Journalism Conference, in Cardiff, looking at how journalism schools are basically training journalists in their own image – do we create people with the skills to survive in the networked world or are we helping them socialise in the existing newsroom with training/education and internships/work placements.
She made some very interesting points about how that needs to change and highlighted projects like our tahoe, Albany Today (from her own j-school) and News Mixer as projects which require young journalists to “set up shop” and engage in the networked communities and the community on their own doorstep.
We need to rethink our own practices within the academy and make our purposes and obligations more explicit
She added that educators need to
teach students to value innovation, uncertainty and experimentation
There are issues that Mensing outnlined here regarding timetable, collaborating with disperate groups, rewarding innovation and experimentation (something tough in the traditional academic setting) and the difficulty in faculty being able to make community commitments.
Is there a link to the paper or presentation? TIA!
Sorry for taking so long to reply – no as the articles are currently firewalled while the special edition of the journal is being collated