While my educational experience is limited in both time and geographic scope, I have been alarmed by the lack of general knowledge and culture among many journalism students.
They are unaware of what has happened in the world over the last 50 years, so they don’t understand current events and their potential consequences. We must return to basics, ensuring journalists have an excellent general culture that allows them to make the most of their work.
Third, and related to acquiring a broad general culture, new journalists must be much better at prioritizing and categorizing news.
They need to be out on the streets, taking the pulse of people’s reality, talking to them, empathizing with them and experiencing the world as the majority of people do. This is how one truly understands what is important and what people prioritize.
Reconnect the public to the press.
The detachment between journalists and the public is one of the reasons for the decline in newspaper readership.
Unfortunately, this is not taught in journalism schools, yet it is essential. Most journalists spend their days in front of screens whether in newsrooms or remotely in their homes. They rely on secondary sources of information that are often produced by organizations with interests different from those of the general public.
A fourth area for improvement is the permanent implementation of critical thinking throughout journalistic processes. In many daily news articles essential information — the traditional five Ws (who, what, when, where and why) — are missing. Most important, the stories often lack context.
Journalists should ask themselves why they report on a given topic, who provides the information, what hidden interests might be involved and what value this information holds for the public.
It is true that journalists alone cannot change the current media landscape. But in their role as the central actors in the system, they can do much to improve the quality of information and support citizens.
A well-rounded “classical” education, coupled with a curious and critical mind, should produce good journalists. These “new professionals” would be better equipped to face the current economic model of information, which favors powerful entities controlling information, the overwhelming information saturation, the prevailing negativity and cynicism and the constant distractions in the form of screens that affect our lives.
If concerned citizens also make an effort to support and reward this new form of quality journalism, we will all benefit. And our societies will gain a stronger democratic and peaceful coexistence. This is why it is worth valuing and improving journalism education.
Three questions to consider:
- What is meant by an “information ecosystem”?
- Why does the author argue that many journalists are disconnected from the public they are trying to reach?
- If you were a journalist, what stories would you want to tell?