Journalism educators jump in the fray
An article in Thursday’s New York Times, “5 leading institutions start journalism education effort” describes a $6 million effort for five leading journalism programs (Columbia, Berkeley, Northwestern, USC, and Harvard) to “revitalize journalism education” and address the crisis in journalism.
Journalism educators clearly have a stake in the outcome of restoring trust in the media, and they could play a unique role in generating truly innovative journalism that connects with and serves various publics. Whether universities can break free of some of the institutional patterns that tend to trap them in passing along the approved canon instead of innovating and changing journalism, is an open question. Regardless, this experiment in collaboration will be an interesting one to watch.
