JOURNALISM EDUCATION

Read more about the state of journalism education in a Q&A with former ACEJMC president Jerry Ceppos.

When Christopher Callahan was named dean of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University last May, he said, "If you want to be a college dean in 2005, you have to understand that it isn't 1985."

And he has been busy making changes in the curriculum  ever since.

Before coming to Arizona State, Callahan was associate dean at Maryland's Phillip Merrill College of Journalism. A former Washington correspondent for The Associated Press, he also served as a senior editor and frequent writer for the American Journalism Review. He is the author of "A Journalist's Guide to the Internet: The Net as a Reporting Tool."

Recently, Callahan responded to a list of e-mailed questions from Poynter.

Poynter: From your viewpoint as a dean, what is the state of journalism education in this country today?

Callahan: Deeply divided. On one side there are schools such as Medill, Missouri, Maryland and Cronkite that provide an intensive professional journalism curriculum on top of a broad-based liberal arts education. The purpose of these schools is to produce the next generation of great journalists, along with creating applied research that can address some of the many problems facing the news industry today. On the other side are schools that focus heavily on mass communication theory and scholarly research. This division has always existed in journalism education, but I think it is becoming more pronounced. This division is played out not just in the curriculum, but in the make up of faculty.

If you had the opportunity to start a school of journalism from scratch, what it would like?

Well, to some degree, we are doing that at the Cronkite School with a major curriculum overhaul. In my mind, a great professional journalism school should have the following elements:

• A Broad-based Liberal Arts Education. The old adage that journalists need to know a little bit about a lot of things remains true. Journalism students still need to be taking most of their course outside of journalism. They need to be exposed to a wide cross-section of disciplines and ideas: history, political science, economics, business, the arts, culture, technology, languages, philosophy, psychology, sociology.
  

• The Core Values of Journalism. Delivery systems have changed dramatically in the past decade, and will continue to change. But the most important elements of great journalism remain the same. Students must have a deep understanding of the ethics of journalism, the societal role of journalism, especially in an increasingly multi-cultural society, the legal rights, risks and responsibilities of journalism, the history of journalism. These values of great journalism are more important in today's 24-hour, a deadline-every-minute news culture than ever before.
  

• Basic Skills. No matter what kind of journalism students eventually go on to practice, they should have a shared set of skills. All journalism  students should be able to:
• Understand what "news" is and how it relates to different audiences.
• Report quickly, accurately, fairly and objectively.
• Write in a crisp, clean, compelling fashion.
• Conceptualize and deliver stories across a wide variety of platforms.
  

• Advanced Skills. All journalism students need to be exposed to New Media concepts and skills. But each student also should graduate with an expertise in a particular form of media -- print, broadcast, online. The fear about a 100 percent "converged" curriculum is that students will not have a proficiency at any one set of skills to be able to enter the news industry at a high level.
  

• Standards. Professional journalism schools should have professional journalism standards. Great schools have rigorous standards and hold their students to them.

• Faculty. You can't have a great school without great faculty. The best faculty blends top professional journalists with scholars who can provide research to help solve some of the industry's greatest problems.

Given the number of scandals that have rocked the news industry over the past few years do you think journalists are properly prepared to deal with ethical issues when they enter the profession? And, if not, what should be done?

Ethics is at the core of who we are as journalists and how we are defined by our audiences. Journalism schools each should have a free-standing journalism ethics course required of all students in addition to infusing concepts of ethics and ethical decision-making into all courses.



Have you discovered what, if any, common practices link the best journalism schools together?

The kinds of curriculum, faculty and standards described under Question Two.



As a dean, what advice would you give to young people entering your program, especially as the news-delivery landscape continues to change so rapidly? Why should they become journalists?

There are -- and have always been -- a hundred reasons not to become a journalist (long hours, low pay, pressure, public criticism, etc.). And at the end of the day, there really are only two reasons to be a journalist: It's important, and it's fun. Journalists remain terribly important to their communities, informing readers and viewers about critical issues and serving as a monitor on government, business and other leaders. And it remains one of the most fun jobs around. At its essence, the role of the journalist is to go out and talk to interesting people about topics that lots of people would want to know about, and then participating in a creative process to bring that information to readers and viewers. And there just aren't a lot of jobs that are both important and fun. Delivery systems have changed dramatically in recent years, and will continue to change. But the essential job of the journalist -- to accurately, quickly, fairly and objectively uncover important stories and deliver them to news consumers -- remains the same.


You have to hire faculty members. What qualities did you look for, and how important is prior experience in a newsroom in your decision?

Critical. The ideal candidates are top-level professionals who have a passion for developing young journalists and an ability to teach at the highest levels.



What's the toughest part of your job?  

The biggest challenge is keeping in constant communication with the various constituency groups: students, faculty, staff, news professionals regionally and nationally, donors, potential donors, alumni and university leaders.