Medill Revamps Journalism Program
This from the Chronicle of Higher Education:
Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism is expected to publicly unveil a revamped curriculum soon that has been the subject of heated debate for more than a year.
At a time when newspaper readership is steadily declining and many readers are bouncing from blogs to Internet video to get their news, the new approach will send student reporters out into the field with video iPods and digital camcorders, as well as spiral notebooks. The most controversial change, though, is the increased emphasis on marketing. This fall, lessons in audience behavior and motivation will be taught alongside drills in crafting leads and meeting deadlines. Students will be encouraged to connect with readers by writing out of storefront newsrooms in diverse Chicago neighborhoods.
John Lavine, the school’s dean, said:
“It’s not enough to train reporters to write for the evening broadcast news show or for the features section of a daily newspaper. Our job is to create journalists who can win and hold the attention of media consumers faced with limited time and abundant media choices.” …
Since Mr. Lavine took over, the Medill School of Journalism is now referred to simply as the “Medill School.”
All students have to buy their own laptops, software, video iPods, and digital camcorders, which cost about $3,600, the article adds.
Here is more:
“In the sophomore news-writing class I taught, it took the whole 10 weeks to get students to write clearly, without any obviously clumsy constructions,” says Robert McClory, a professor emeritus who still teaches an occasional magazine-writing class at Medill.
“When you throw in all this other stuff — students are not only writing the story, but filming it, editing it, and putting it on the Web — that’s extremely stressful for many professors.”
But Mr. Lavine and his supporters insist that versatility is key in today’s media industry. “Employers are saying, ‘We’re not going to hire people who can only do one of those things when we’re going to do all of those things,” Mr. Lavine says.
Here is Lavine’s letter explaining Curriculum 2020.
