ERIC Number: EJ976420
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2012-Sep
Pages: 7
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1077-6958
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
A Truly Bold Idea for U.S. J&MC Education: Sincerely Trying True Excellence for Once
Claussen, Dane S.
Journalism and Mass Communication Educator, v67 n3 p211-217 Sep 2012
On June 4 this year, Howard Finberg of the Poynter Institute gave a speech called "The Future of Journalism Education" at the European Journalism Centre's twentieth anniversary celebration in Maastricht, the Netherlands, in which he presented the results of a survey of journalists and journalism professors about the value of a journalism degree, among other things. Finberg spent the rest of his speech bragging about Poynter's News University, encouraging journalism schools to offer a lot of News University-type online courses, saying that "maybe a journalism degree isn't the endgame" (after earlier having said "I do NOT suggest that this survey says that a degree is unimportant"), suggesting that journalism and mass communication (J&MC) programs do "practical research, not just academic exploration," and pushing a combination of student work portfolios that go way beyond "just traditional clips or tapes" and "digital badges that represent skills or other competences" of students in addition to the uber-portfolio and the course transcript. Finberg packed quite a bit into this Maastricht speech, and it requires more than a little bit of unpacking, which the author does in this article without defending the status quo. In sum, the author points out that a sincere goal of true excellence, which would involve, among other things, all journalism students producing News21-like work, would lead to meeting Carnegie Corp.'s three journalism "needs."
Descriptors: Journalism Education, Journalism, Educational Needs, Scholastic Journalism, Reader Response, Change Strategies, Educational Change, Relevance (Education), Curriculum Evaluation, Educational Objectives, Educational Philosophy, Educational Practices, Academic Achievement, Excellence in Education, Academic Standards, Educational Quality
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
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