Closing notes: A time to embrace uncertainty

Ivor Shapiro is the Chair of the Ryerson School of Journalism. This is a lightly edited version of his remarks delivered at the end of the Journalism Transformations colloquium on April 28, 2016.   “The Audience Revolution” was the title of the plenary that opened this day-long colloquium. Recast from a label to include a verb,…

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Live coverage: Innovations in Education

As a function of new conceptions of the audience and the importance of technology (as above) journalists’ work functions are no longer covered by descriptors such as reporter, editor and producer; today’s range of job titles include product manager, audience developer, communities editor, and web/mobile developer. Carrie Brown (City University of New York) and  Rich Gordon (Northwestern…

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Ivor Shapiro: To turn or to burn

Journalism education means preparation for a career in journalism: true or false? The best answer is, sometimes. This paradigm – journalism education is preparation for a career in journalism – has been self-evident to most educators, students, and others since the discipline’s beginnings. Yet it has long been equally self-evident that a substantial number of journalism students’ futures…

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Jan Schaffer: J-school as a “gateway degree”

If I were to lead a journalism school today, I’d want its mission to be: We make the media we need for the world we want. Not: We are an assembly line for journalism wannabes. The media we need could encompass investigative journalism, restorative narratives, soft-advocacy journalism, knowledge-based journalism, artisanal journalism, solutions journalism, civic journalism, entrepreneurial…

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Toward 2020: Views on journalism education

Testifying to the urgent interest in professional renewal among journalism educators, more than one hundred people from Canada, the United States, Europe, and Australia attended the conference. The papers published here represent a reasonable cross-section of the issues discussed. The authors advance different ideas about where journalism education should go from here; at times they…

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Carrie Brown: Finding new ways to listen to communities

“This is a course in listening to a community: understanding and empathizing with its needs and learning how to help a community share its own knowledge. We will talk to ambassadors from communities of various definitions?—?geographic (neighborhoods, towns), demographic (ethnic groups, age groups), interest (topics such as cancer, parenting, or sports), and business (organized around…

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Breakout session: Innovations in education

1:30 p.m.-3 p.m. Thursday, April 28 As a function of new conceptions of the audience and the importance of technology (as above) journalists’ work functions are no longer covered by descriptors such as reporter, editor and producer; today’s range of job titles include product manager, audience developer, communities editor, and web/mobile developer.  Carrie Brown (City…

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Closing plenary: The j-school value proposition

3 p.m.-4:30 p.m. Thursday, April 28 In the wake of the day’s discussions,  Carrie Brown (City University of New York) and Rich Gordon (Northwestern University) begin the session with reflections on how transformation in news consumption and technological and educational innovation are changing the way we think – or ought to think – about the future of journalism education.…

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