Image via WikipediaNBC has a strange idea of broadcast journalism for the 21st century. It has joined the New York Film Academyto launch a programme to “train the next generation of journalists who will be prepared to navigate the evolving landscape of digital journalism”.
The aim is to meet “the pressing demand for skilled, can-do digital journalists on network television, cable, and the Internet”.
These are noble intentions, but the curriculum available online is firmly rooted in established broadcast journalism practices, with students working on assignments such as a traditional news segment. NBC’s conception of digital journalism appears to be based on the idea of shooting and editing your own material.
The programme looks more like broadcast journalism for the 20th century, using 21st century tools. Other academics have also questioned the training:
A curriculum focused on teaching new technologies “misses the point,” said Dianne Lynch, dean of the Park School of Communications at Ithaca College. “You have to have the tools so you can say the things you have to say, but first you have to have something to say.”
The new media component is laughable:
Students will upload their projects to a class website as they are completed. Each student will create a short opinion piece to post, and maintain a vlog throughout the year.
This falls far short of re-imagining network TV news for a YouTube generation and reveals a lack of understanding of how online video is different from TV.
Would you pay US$17,000 per semester for this course?
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Strikes me that this a low rent (or rip off) of the kind of approach Rosenblum takes with his Travel academy stuff except this doesnt seem to offer the range of access to execs.
It’s obvious that people will pay for that. I wouldn’t be surprised if people pay for this.
The problem is that the lure of TV is strong and the mystic air of TV land does a good job of blurring out the fact that TV is still years behind the pace.
I should just say, I want having a pop at Rosenblums course there.
What is wrong with rooting the curriculum in traditional broadcast journalism practices? You don’t re-invent the wheel, you upgrade it.
I want to get my news from somebody that has been trained in ethics, fact-checking and reading between the lines of officialdom-speak. The program at the NYFA is taught by veterans of broadcast news with many years of experience. I would think a potential student would like that.
Students seeking to be video journalists have many options. They could spend up to $60,000 a year with room and board, going to Columbia Journalism School, take the program at their local community college, or take a boot camp, like the NBC/NYFA program which immerses them in an intense news gathering environment, with passionate instructers.
I suppose you guessed by now, that I am one of those teachers.
Thanks for the comment, Ed. There are certain skills that are needed, regardless of the platform, such as ethics, fact-checking and critical thinking.
The point I was making is that the Internet is a medium in its own right, so students should learn how producing content for the web is different from producing for broadcast.
Broadcast is a one to many medium, whereas the web is a many to many medium, and this should inform journalism education.
NYFA has a horrible reputation as a poorly run academy with very little credibility and the idea of them teaching “journalism” is scary. Journalism is not just entertainment. A true journalist has years of education and actual literary skills. Items which can not be taught in a “crash course”. Yes, maybe you will pick up some techniques on looking good on camera but a school with an open admissions policy for anyone with a credit card is a joke.
By the way, I love that Ed- an instructor of this institution actually ended a sentence in “that”. Obviously, grammer is not something we worry about at pay as you go institutions.