During a panel at the AEJMC annual conference on rebooting journalism education, Rich Beckman from the University of Miami in Florida highlighted one of the big issues in journalism schools.
Beckman spoke about the need to have faculty with the skills, knowledge and experience to teach new and emerging forms of digital journalism.
He argued that re-educating existing faculty members is a myth. In his view, taking a weekend course does not mean you can then teach multimedia.
Beckman hit on a key point. Teaching digital journalism is not just about knowing the tools. He stressed he doesn’t teach software.
He described this as a waste of his time when students can learn by taking online courses.
Instead, he focuses on teaching the students about storytelling.
Teaching journalism today is much more than teaching students how to use a piece of software or coding.
Rather, I would argue it is a mindset. It is understanding how digital is changing journalism norms and practices and how to teach students to tell compelling stories in creative and critical ways.
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