Anchored in the past; alive to the future

There are many traditions in our country that have been followed since our inception. Now that journalism is blending with social media, it's important for scholastic advisers to continue to pass along the fundamentals of traditional journalism to their students. Traditional journalists may recognize there is a battle to fight with social media, but they can also work to include social media within the framework of traditional journalism. Social media does not seem to be going away. Therefore, journalists and educators need to accept it and use it as a teaching tool. Pretending it doesn't exist or trying to compete with it is simply foolish. 


In connection, I would like to analyze the Thomas Jefferson quote which states "Our rulers can have authority over such natural rights, only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit." Our conscience tells us what is right and what is wrong. As journalists, we should know what is a credible and accurate story and what is just hearsay. Sometimes we are fooled, but this is usually because we are rushing to get the word out and letting our guard down when it comes to being perfectly correct. Speed often sacrifices accuracy. 

Adapting for the Future

It actually may be too late to adapt for the future if the future is already here. I think journalism advisers need to change now or actually yesterday, even if it's uncomfortable. It almost comes to down to a generational issue. The students we teach are growing up in a generation where "true journalism" could be fading away as social media continues to grow. Personally, I think professional journalism and social media should be separate. Professional journalism should be where you receive your news and social media should be a place to keep up with what your friends are doing. However, this is not the case and it does make me angry. You can't really blame anyone. You just need to adapt. Journalists have always adapted and they must do so now.

When beginning to teach new student journalists I think it would help to start by asking them where do they get their news and the discuss the validity of those sources. As educators, we cannot teach the basic fundamentals of journalism and pretend that social media is not having an impact on the field. You also need to be careful not to insult social media and not make your feelings known that traditional journalism is more fundamentally sound. The bottom line is you must first teach the basic parts of journalism then figure out the medium that will be used to communicate the information. Too often it's the other way around. Students know how to use the medium, but they don't know how to report the information correctly.

Educating the public about media's social roles

Journalism advisers are educators and should be working to not only teach students, but the public about the role of the media organization they advise. The difficult part is also getting students to teach the public. I think it's important to build this into the curriculum which is presented to student journalists. Students need to understand journalists are representatives of the public, storytellers, information seekers and gatherers, and also educators. The public needs to be introduced to, understand, and appreciate the role of the media. This will help establish the importance of the media, especially on a scholastic level, along with the rights and responsibilities of journalists. It will also build and hopefully maintain the credibility of the news organization. 


We need to instill into our students the message that democracy cannot exist without an active and professional journalism program. From the time they are young students are taught about the democracy of our nation and how it compares to other nations which are not free. However, students need to be reminded  of these freedoms when they start to learn about journalism. Without journalism and someone watching the government, democracy is dead. Despite this many educational institutions are not run in a democratic manner, therefore it even more difficult for student journalists to practice their craft under their First Amendment rights. 

Citizens as Journalists

The line is really starting to become blurry between reporting done by professional journalists and what is being done by citizen journalists. Thanks to social networking essentially everyone could be a citizen journalist, but are their methods as professional as a trained journalist?

Spreading information has never been easier and faster. It's almost scary how immediate information presentation has become. Nobody has to wait for anything. The time is takes to find out what is happening is faster than snapping our fingers. So, how do professional or scholastic journalists teach citizen journalists? It would to develop guidelines for citizen journalists and also hold workshops to teach them. Allowing citizen journalists to contribute stories to your news organization without any type of guidelines and training could easily result in your organization losing its credibility.