Mark Worley
So how can a student journalist at UTAS become the real thing? And how did the local J-school win an award for its curriculum when it is sending potential print journalism cadets out into the workforce with only one assessed piece of writing?
HOW many practice articles should a journalism student write before they are ready for the newsroom? Should it be 30? Or 50? Or more?
I will graduate with a major in journalism from the University of Tasmania (UTAS) in July, yet have only been called upon to write one piece of ‘journalistic’ writing in my three and a half years of journalism education.
For a student looking to graduate with a print journalism focus, UTAS makes it tough. Only three second and third year courses (shaping the word, feature writing and environmental journalism) have assessment that includes practical writing assignments. Shaping the word (a sub-editing and layout oriented course) was not offered in 2006 or 2007 — meaning that J-school students who started their degrees in 2005 would never be able to take the course. Feature writing which calls for two pieces of practical writing within its assessment was offered in first semester, 2006 but was not offered in 2005 or 2007. Environmental journalism was offered in 2005, 2006 and 2007 — but has only one piece of practical writing in its assessment.
So how can a student journalist at UTAS become the real thing? And how did the local J-school win an award for its curriculum when it is sending potential print journalism cadets out into the workforce with only one assessed piece of writing?
After attending the University of Texas on exchange in 2006, I saw a marked difference in the way that journalism was taught. There, print journalism students had to take several beginner and intermediate courses dealing with reporting, and then pass a practical test, before they were allowed to move up to more advanced classes such as: online journalism, feature writing, computer assisted reporting, narrative journalism, print design and advanced news reporting. Each course’ assessment was made up entirely of practical writing, design, research skills etc.
When studying at the University of Texas I took feature writing and online journalism. Feature writing required me to write five features, three of which had to be published by either a campus newspaper or other medium. Online journalism required me to create — from scratch — a news website that hosted multimedia applications (eg. short radio or video documentary) that were, again, created entirely by the student. And these two courses also dealt with a lot of theory, with guest lecturers including the online editor of the New York Times and senior journalists from a wide range of local media outlets attending classes to pass on their considerable knowledge.
Despite the ever-increasing need for journalists to have web experience, the UTAS online journalism course (not offered in 2007) curriculum states that: while some technical skills, such as digital photography and use of Dreamweaver software, are taught at a basic level, the main emphasis is on a conceptual framework for journalists operating in the online environment. Why aren’t these technical skills taught at a more advanced level? There is no doubt in my mind, that these skills will be soon a requirement for any student applying for cadetships. UTAS J-school students simply cannot be expected to rival those from interstate and overseas if they are not given the appropriate training.
While I agree that media law and journalism ethics classes (the only two subjects compulsory as part of a journalism major at UTAS) are important, a situation currently exists where a student can get a journalism major with no practical journalism taught to them past a first year ‘introduction’ course.
There is a limited supply of academic staff available to teach a wide-range of journalism classes, but some ideas for the UTAS J-school are:
• Offer important writing courses like online journalism, feature writing and sub-editing every year so that students have the chance to learn how to write.
• Introduce a new compulsory ‘intermediate’ news reporting class where students can continue to get a handle on how to write effective copy.
• Use guests from local news outlets more extensively in an attempt to broaden the range of views and experiences currently offered to students.
• Introduce a J-school student magazine or newspaper (with an online version) where students from a wide range of classes can collaborate and publish their own work.
Eg. Online journalism class publishes the paper on the web, feature writing and news reporting classes write the stories and subediting and layout classes edit the copy and design the pages and heads. Radio and television classes could even create some of the multimedia content for the online magazine/paper.
I know that some of these options are more difficult than others. It should be the utmost priority of the UTAS J-school, however, to ensure that a student like me finds it impossible to graduate after three years with a major from their school, having only written one piece of practical journalism.
