Multimedia reporting: no longer optional
November 26, 2007 in Academics, Multimedia views
UPDATE: Here’s the course outline/syllabus for the course. #
Earlier this semester, the faculty of Eastern Illinois University’s journalism department (one of only 109 accredited programs in the country) took the ambitious step of mandating a multimedia storytelling course for all students in the journalism program. #
Here’s my answer to Megan and Mindy and Pat Thornton and anyone else who keeps banging their heads against the walls of academia: Every journalism student should be required to take a course in multimedia storytelling. #
I say this is an ambitious step, because most of the big journalism programs don’t require multimedia reporting classes for students. I know this because Bob Bergland studied the 109 ACEJMC-accredited programs for converged courses, and found that fewer than half had a required course in multimedia/convergence journalism (click here for the paper). #
The course has been approved by the college of arts and humanities and now by the university. In the fall of 2008, every beginning journalism student at Eastern will have some exposure to audio, video, and web storytelling. I hope to get clearance in the next couple of days to tell you how we’re hoping to structure the classes. And I’ll be talking in the coming days about equipment, I’m sure. #
The point is, this isn’t something that Eastern is unique in doing. We shouldn’t be. Everyone should be doing this. It’s not like Columbia or Missouri or Texas or whoever has a monopoly on the Internet. It’s yours to grab as well. Do it now, while you have the chance. #
This is exactly what every j-school needs. I'm not going to sit here and say that every student needs to be a CSS or audio of Flash or whatever expert, but every j-student should at least be exposed to multimedia journalism.
Even if a student becomes "just a writer" after he or she graduates, that person will most likely have to work with other journalists on projects and special features. How can you work with others if you don't know what's possible? Every journalists needs to know what is possible. It makes everyone better.
I took a course in newspaper design and pagination, and It was a required class when I graduated two years ago. It's not like newspaper design is a booming field, and if a class like that is required, surely a multimedia class should be required too.
Students need to be exposed to what's out there. After this required class, they can figure out which parts of multimedia journalism they are interested in and take further classes in those areas.
Personally, I wish it was required at my undergrad and graduate level. I'm lucky to have the job I do just because of what I happened to learn on my own. I don't want to say that college didn't teach me anything, but they didn't teach me the skill needed in the modern newsroom.
Perhaps the greatest disappointment was how many of them still had skepticism about blogs and the Internet. No coincidence that those were the classes I loathed to go to.
Kiyoshi — you went to UIS also, right? I would have loved to take a class like this there. Maybe integrate it into PAR curriculum even.
I'm the same as you — I didn't get my job based on ANYTHING I learned in the classroom, but by what I taught myself outside of the classroom and in the dorm.
I like the idea of this syllabus. I'll be curious to find out how the class goes and what changes you might want to make to the course.
My only concern is that it might be too ambitious. I don't know how many hours a week your students are supposed to be in class or spend outside of class, but you don't want to rush them through everything. Although, it's hard for me to say one way or the other without knowing how your j-school program works.
One area you probably should mention is (X)HTML and CSS. I'm not saying that you need to teach students this in this introductory course, because it is harder to grasp than some of the other stuff, but I'd at least go over it and explain how it impacts journalism. A lot of multimedia projects have to be put together with a (X)HTML and CSS backbone.
Is you program also considering offering upper-level courses for students who want to learn more about a certain area or take there training to the next level?
The course is looking good. I wish more schools thought like this.
[...] Andrew Dunn notes that the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is getting with the program and requiring a multimedia course for all journalism students as part of their new curriculum. Glad to know they’ve joined us in the future! [...]
That's a very useful article. I will be sure to send it around to my friends over at facebook and myspace.
Interesting post. I have made a twitter post about this. Others no doubt will like it like I did.
Interesting post. I have made a twitter post about this. Others no doubt will like it like I did.
Interesting post. I have made a twitter post about this. Others no doubt will like it like I did.