This summer, I used a NATPE Faculty Development Grant to spend two weeks at a television news operation, my longest stint in a newsroom since joining academe.

The station I visited, KXAS-TV, the NBC owned and operated station in Dallas-Fort Worth known as NBC 5, was the first station in Texas when it launched in 1948. It is also a station in transition. Mark Ginther, the vice president of news, came to the station less than two years ago with a vision to move away from daily crime news toward more enterprise coverage.

Before starting my time at NBC 5, a former colleague quipped that, although there have been some technology changes, most things remained the same (for starters, I was amazed the iNEWS, the popular newsroom computer system, had hardly changed). Some other newsroom traditions remained: eccentric characters, gallows humor, and an appetite for free food.

I did find some changes and some constants and, when classes resume in the fall, I will have several things to share that will enhance my teaching.

1. The Newscast Still Leads

One of the first things that struck me is how much the newsroom is still so focused on the traditional broadcasts. While digital is included in meetings and seen as important, it is often secondary to the newscasts.

But the more time I spent observing, the more I realized the conundrum. One way to think about this is that newspapers making efforts to be digital first means, for the most part, focusing on digital and using that content to produce one paper for the next day. However, at NBC 5, like most TV newsrooms, there are hours of broadcasts to fill from 4:30 in the morning until 10:35 at night, a total of 6 hours a day at NBC 5. That means you have many hard broadcast deadlines and you need lots of local content to fill 4:30 to 7 a.m., 11 a.m. to noon, 4 to 5 p.m., 5 to 5:30 p.m., 6 to 6:30 p.m. and 10 to 10:35 p.m.

Kris Gutierrez and Bianca Castro anchor a 5 p.m. newscast. Photo by Aaron Chimbel.

While digital demands have increased, TV newsrooms are producing more hours of broadcasts each day, an average of 5.3 hours a day in 2014 compared to 3.6 hours per day a decade earlier, according to Pew Research Center.

At the same time, the digital staff has been expanded to eight staffers and includes a recent addition of a digital video producer who works to create shareable videos for social media and the station’s digital outlets. She produces her videos not as vertical or horizontal videos, but as squares, which she says works well using the most real estate on most devices.

About two-thirds of the traffic to the station’s digital properties comes from mobile, so thinking about how stories will play devices is important. Still, the focus is on the traditional broadcasts, which make up the vast majority of TV station advertising revenue.

Takeaway:

Everyone is expected to do their TV job and contribute to digital. Reporters are required to write text versions of their stories and post them to the content management system before their story airs, in addition to posting to social media about their stories.

2. Mornings are More Important Than Ever

For most people entering local TV news, the most prestigious assignments have been the late night newscasts with mornings seen as a purgatory where the newest folks are sent to pay their dues.

However, at NBC 5 early mornings are seen a growth area. News managers have been infusing resources to create what they say may be the largest staff for a local morning newscast. In addition to the requisite morning anchor duo, meteorologist and traffic anchor, the station often has as many as five reporters each day, including a consumer reporter and three live field reporters.

The station also shifted staffing after visiting the “Today” show in New York. Now, an assignment editor works from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. to plan for mornings and a producer, who previously produced the 5:30 a.m. newscast, works from 1 p.m. to 10 p.m. to further prepare for mornings. The station’s morning newscasts are getting strong ratings, and station management sees success in the morning as key to being the market’s top station throughout the day.

Takeaway:

Embrace mornings and look for creative solutions to utilize resources for maximum impact.

3. Meetings that Matter

The newsroom schedule runs on two things: when the newscasts air and when the news meetings happen.

NBC 5 has the typical morning and afternoon news meetings, but one at 7 p.m. surprised me and stood out as a really good idea.

Recently, the night news team added a 7 p.m. meeting to go over the progress of the marquee 10 p.m. newscast (the equivalent of the 11 p.m. news on the East and West coasts).

This meeting helped to refine the focus of the newscast and allowed the senior producer, producer, director, anchors and others to assess how the stories and rundown were coming along with time to address any concerns. There’s also a quick 9:30 meeting to catch any last minute issues.

The equivalent of the 7 p.m. meeting is something I plan to incorporate in my broadcast classes where we discuss stories leading up to the newscast but do not regroup as a class to evaluate when we know more and more stories are finalized, or close to it.

Takeaway:

The collaborative approach is key and the various points of view lead to positive changes.

4. Live Technology is Ubiquitous

The advent of bonded cellular systems like Dejero, LiveU and Streambox have largely replace traditional live vans – and at a much lower cost. NBC 5 now has eight Dejero-equipped SUVs and six portable Dejero units that each send a live signal the equivalent of using nine cell phone signals.

The station still has seven traditional live microwave trucks and two satellite trucks, but they aren’t used much anymore. Often they’re only used in situations where there may be significant competing cellular traffic, like a major sporting event, and the Dejero would not be as reliable.

Producer Patty Zamarripa during a newscast. Photo by Aaron Chimbel.

Live shots are now faster, easier, more mobile and more available. Reporters can be live in more places (in moving vehicles, walking with protesters, in a skyscraper) and producers don’t need to juggle the use of live trucks. Several photojournalists have been assigned Dejeros and can be instantly deployed to breaking news, saving valuable time.

While I was familiar with the technology, I was surprised at how widespread its adoption was and how rarely the traditional live vans are used anymore.A few years ago, it was common for starter markets to just have one or two live trucks, due to the expense. Now, nearly all reporters can be live multiple times a day.

Takeaway:

For students who want to be reporters, live presentation skills are more important than ever.

News Adds Value

Since he arrived at NBC 5 in September 2015, Mark has worked to move the station from crime-focused news to more of the enterprising and NPPA-styled news he was successful with at KING-TV in Seattle.

This is a newsroom in transition, with an influx of new employees, employees in new positions, and many other longtime veterans, all adapting to a vision that challenges what many have grown accustomed to.

For example, after leading one newscast with breaking news of an officer-involved shooting, Mark led a discussion of if that was more newsworthy than the story that followed about runoff elections in Dallas. It was an insightful discussion and one that was not about saying one choice was right or wrong, but to push the journalists to think about what story has the greater importance, not just which one happened closet to news time. Perhaps the shooting story would have worked better with background about officer-involved shootings in that suburb, suggested some in the morning news meeting the next day. The point: Leading with the shooting isn’t necessarily wrong, but the default shouldn’t be for spot news, either. Crime coverage isn’t banned from newscasts, but should be in proper context and more than just the proverbial body count.

The NBC 5 newsroom. Photo by Aaron Chimbel.

Still, success was evident while I was there. The station learned it won four national Edward R. Murrow Awards, including for overall excellence, during my visit. The four national Murrows were the most for any local TV station in the country.

Perhaps then, it is not surprising that many NBC 5 journalists emphasized to me that, despite many changes in journalism, the basics still matter a great deal. Writing, reporting, people-focused stories, story generation and compelling visual storytelling are all as important as ever.

Takeaway:

For a news organization to have value to its community, it must go beyond the easy stories. Value comes in providing high-quality content that people cannot get anywhere else. Also, transitioning a newsroom is methodical, not instant.

Aaron Chimbel is an associate professor of professional practice in journalism at TCU’s Bob Schieffer College of Communication. Before returning to TCU in 2009, Chimbel worked at WFAA-TV in Dallas, where he won five Emmy Awards and a national Edward R. Murrow Award. Follow him on Twitter at @aaronchimbel.

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Just last month, Syracuse University’s Jennifer Grygiel wrote for MediaShift that, “Colleges and universities are busy writing new curriculum, hiring qualified faculty and working to gain access to enterprise software and technology — but there is often still a gap in what we can teach.”

As we know, the industry is changing rapidly, we are in the midst of a presidential campaign that is testing journalists in unprecedented ways and, we have seen racial issues grip the nation again and again.

The day before Grygiel’s piece, New York magazine posted a lengthy overview of the state of journalism and media, “The Case Against the Media. By the Media,” in which it painted a “negative” picture of journalism (although it also cited some optimism).

“People love to shoot the messenger, and these days especially, in an era of proverbial cable-news shoutfests and clickbait journalism, the messenger probably hasn’t been doing itself many favors,” the NY magazine story lamented.

Then there was this: “Dire signs for media were everywhere this year.”

Amid all that, the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, the world’s oldest and largest group of collegiate journalism and mass communication educators, held its annual conference in Minneapolis last week to provide some help for the nearly 2,000 educators in attendance.

This was my third time attending this conference, and it is a bit overwhelming with dozens of sessions each day. Here are some of my top takeaways:

Peg Achterman discusses tools for cell phone video. Photo by Aaron Chimbel.

Equipment Overload

With technology changing so fast and tight budgets at many institutions, educators are struggling at times with what equipment to buy, what software programs to use and how much technical training to include in classes.

The University of North Carolina’s Lisa Villamil says she stays connected to the industry, and “if it’s something that isn’t being used in the field,” she cuts it from her classes.

There is a nice benefit in switching the tools you use, she says: “There are fabulous free tools being created every day.”

However, those free tools are hard to keep track of. Villamil spoke on a panel about making tech purchasing and teaching decisions along with Ohio University’s Mary Rogus, who puts the onus on the students to be able to learn on their own.

“(Employers) want students who are adaptable,” she said.

Another panelist, Seattle Pacific’s Peg Achterman, said she often asks students struggling with technology, “Did you Google it?” The message: Figure it out yourself, which is not to be mean, but solution-focused.

The bottom line is that programs of varying sizes and budgets have different needs and abilities. Faculty need to give students a meaningful understanding of why certain story forms are useful and then send students out to do it and not simply focus on one tool or program.

“Different uses require different software,” Rogus said. We can’t possibly teach every student every one, and they’ll have changed by the time students graduate, anyway.

Mary Bock discusses teaching video. Photo by Aaron Chimbel.

Balancing Broadcast

Once video equipment is selected, how do you use it?

That was the question in a panel I led seeking to provide guidance to broadcast journalism professors who know video is being produced by essentially every news organization, not just television stations.

Still, as the annual Radio Television Digital News Association/Hofstra University TV employment study revealed, local television news employment checked in at 27,870 employees for 2015, second all-time to only 2001. There are lots of opportunities for traditional TV jobs, even if we recognize that TV is not the only place graduates will produce video.

So should you still teach students to produce a traditional 1:30 TV-style package? Syracuse University’s Simon Perez says yes.

“The ability to distill a story down to 90 seconds means you know it forwards and backwards and can make the choice of what to leave in and leave out,” Perez said.

Even so, Lynda Kraxberger, the associate dean of undergraduate studies and administration at the University of Missouri, says while the traditional package and resume reel may not be the future of the industry, they are still needed for students to get jobs because news directors expect them.

But the University of Texas at Austin’s Mary Bock says audience demands have changed and most viewers don’t want videos longer than a minute.

“Will people click something if they know how long it is?” Bock asked.

She sees a bifurcation of video into short content designed for phones and documentary-style productions, leaving out much of the way video is currently being produced.

The short clips are something that Toni Albertson has been focused on at Mount San Antonio College near Los Angeles.

“One of the things I wanted to focus on is the shift away from traditional broadcast to video clips on social media, and the basic skills needed to produce these clips,” Albertson told me in preparation for the panel.

Bock sees a fundamental shift from broadcasters filling time to consumers needing to make time, which means video can no longer be produced the same way.

Perez says the traditional package form forces video producers to do all of the things that make for good video storytelling regardless of the length.

“I think we need to be careful about jumping on every single bandwagon that comes along and end up giving students a very shallow level of expertise,” Perez told me. “Good storytelling is good storytelling and good video is good video. The mechanism by which it gets presented to viewers may change, but the principles don’t.”

Cindy Royal talks about teaching code. Photo by Aaron Chimbel

Code, yes it’s still important

The language of the web and mobile, according to Texas State University’s Cindy Royal, is code, even if we’re not clear what the term code encompasses exactly because it is so broad.

Simply put, Royal and her fellow panelists, including me, who advocated teaching coding in journalism education, say students need to be at least, as West Virginia’s Bob Britten put it, “code literate.”

“It’s not acceptable to ask your IT person to fix something in bold in your (content management system),” Royal said of journalism graduates.

Royal has developed a digital media innovation major at Texas State, which, coincidently, received final approval from the state during the session.

Other programs are teaching a coding class or classes, but many still do not or do not require them.

Last year, I wrote for MediaShift “Why Journalism Students Need a Baseline Understanding of Coding” and argued that journalism and communication programs can and should take the lead on teaching code for students from across their universities. This is an opportunity for outreach and all-important credit hour generation for our programs.

“Every department across the university,” Royal said, “has problems that can be solved by coding.”

Moreover, she said, “Every industry needs strong communicators who are tech-savvy.”

Another panelist, the University of Iowa’s Kevin Ripka, just finished his first year teaching and said failure is part of the process of coding (it’s true for teaching, too, unfortunately, Kevin).

Students learn problem solving by learning to code, he said, and letting go of their fear is important.

Britten says coding needs to be demystified in courses and curriculum. After all, it’s become as central a part of journalism as video and social media, and he says it should be normalized as such.

So where to begin and what to know? The consensus was that, at a minimum, students should learn HTML and CSS, but those are just the beginning.

There are many free resources for students and faculty who want to begin coding, which include code.org, CodeAcademy and CodeActually, which Royal created specifically to teach journalists and other communicators to code.

John Freeman discusses his class assignment. Photo by Aaron Chimbel

Focus on Diversity

Getting students to engage in diversity was a big focus in many sessions. How professors do that will vary by the class, but, as the nation has been focused on issues of diversity and privilege, professors are coming up with new approaches.

The University of Florida’s John Freeman created an experimental class to send students into Gainesville’s black communities and produce a multimedia project.

“There were so many bad things happening (across the country),” he said. “I wasn’t sensing anything in our community.”

He wanted the class to explore what daily life was like, from the barbershops, which he said were central, to the significance of churches.

“For me, it was unexpected what role religion played in the community,” Freeman said.

At Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, Adam Kuban wants students to understand privilege.

“I don’t think that we do this topic justice,” he said of diversity broadly and privilege, specifically.

So, his Audience Analysis class revisited a sociological study of Muncie from 90 years ago.

The 27 students produced stories about Muncie now looking at those who traditionally have privilege and those who don’t.

“While males don’t see it as this issue,” he said. He hopes engaging in these conversations will help change that mindset.

Marty Baron addresses journalism educators. Photo by Aaron Chimbel.

Spotlight on Marty Baron

Washington Post Executive Editor Marty Baron has led numerous Pulitzer Prize-winning teams, most notably as editor of the Boston Globe for the reporting on the Catholic priest sex abuse and cover up that inspired the Oscar-winning film “Spotlight.”

He’s had a legendary journalism career and is a definitive editor of his generation, and here’s the great part for journalism educators: he still values his journalism education and professors at Lehigh University from 40 years ago.

“Their spirit animated me during the early part of my career,” Baron said of his professors.

They would certainly be proud. Baron received the 2016 Gerald Sass Award for Distinguished Service to Journalism and Mass Communication given by the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication at the convention.

Baron said he would never have survived this long without his professors’ support — a message that resonates well in a roomful of journalism educators.

Many young journalists are well-prepared for the work, he said, but they must enter the field with no sense of entitlement.

“Your students will face enormous obstacles,” he said.

There’s financial uncertainty at many news organizations, but worse, he said, is the erosion of trust in journalism among the public, as seen in the presidential campaign.

Still, Baron, in his understated and soft-spoken style, is as passionate as any young journalist.

“I am optimistic,” Baron said, “and I am hopeful about our profession.”

Despite all of the challenges journalism educators face, there is much to be excited about, particularly the students who will follow and build upon the work of Marty Baron.

Aaron Chimbel is an associate professor of professional practice in journalism at TCU’s Bob Schieffer College of Communication. Before returning to TCU in 2009, Chimbel worked at WFAA-TV in Dallas, where he won five Emmy Awards and a national Edward R. Murrow Award. Follow him on Twitter at @aaronchimbel.

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To think about what the class of 2011 really experienced in college, we have to keep in mind that they would have entered school in 2007 with curriculums that were most likely written in 2006 or earlier. In other words, their journalism training may already be a decade or more old now. It’s a classic problem. Curriculum can take a year or more for faculty to revise or create and be approved at most universities, and the industry is evolving every day.

Think about this: In 2006, MySpace was not just the most popular social media site, it was the most popular website in the U.S.; Twitter, which just celebrated its 10th birthday, was a newborn; Facebook wasn’t open to all until September 2006.

The iPhone wasn’t introduced until 2007.

Newsrooms were trying to adapt to online, but most didn’t see mobile as the future. Virtual reality was largely science fiction back then.

TCU May 2011 graduation. Photo used with permission from TCU.

(Another tidbit about 2006: That was the year MediaShift launched.)

By the time this cohort of students graduated in 2011, the shift in media was apparent.

In its “State of the News Media 2012” report, which looked at data from the previous year, the Pew Research Center said the “digital revolution entered a new era” in 2011.

“The age of mobile, in which people are connected to the web wherever they are, arrived in earnest. More than four in 10 American adults now own a smartphone. One in five owns a tablet. New cars are manufactured with internet built in. With more mobility comes deeper immersion into social networking,” an overview of the report stated.

What Grads Say Was Most Important

The pace of change hasn’t slowed, but asking students and graduates to reveal what helped them most and what they’d change shows, interestingly, that they often aren’t nearly as focused on digital skills as many journalism educators are.

Last year, I asked graduates from the class of 2015 what they learned and wish they’d learned in our journalism program at TCU. This year, I wanted to go back further, to the class of 2011. The near-consensus from grads five years out: Writing and communication skills matter a lot and have helped them all, no matter where their careers have taken them.

“I think the skills you acquire with a journalism degree translate well to just about any job/career you decide to pursue after college,” said Courtney Jay, who worked as an associate producer for CBS’ “Face the Nation” before becoming the deputy director of media relations for America’s Health Insurance Plans.

Of the 13 students who graduated in 2011 and answered my questions, some have worked as journalists and some have not, but a majority said they’d major in journalism again, perhaps pairing it with a second major.

“My journalism degree from TCU taught me how to be an effective communicator, writer and problem solver,” said Jourdan Sullivan, who is completing her MBA and has worked in accounting and operations at non-media companies. “The mix of print and broadcast classes taught me how to succinctly and persuasively communicate and equipped me with strong writing skills, which has been incredibly beneficial in my professional life.”

Alex Butts. Photo used with permission.

“I learned how to take an idea, figure out what facts I needed to obtain from various sources, gather those facts and then organize everything into a story that an audience can follow,” said Alex Butts, who is now an attorney in Oklahoma City. “This process is exactly what a lawyer has to do in interviewing clients and witnesses, taking depositions and then putting all the facts together to write a brief or to present at trial.”

Multiple graduates said a better understanding of the business of journalism and media would have been valuable.

Christa DiSerio. Photo used with permission.

“I would have benefited from learning how to balance a good story, while at the same time, adhering to a solid business strategy that drives readership/impressions/circulation,” said Christa DiSerio, who now works as a digital marketing specialist at Susan G. Komen.

Andrea Bolt, who worked as a reporter at two Texas newspapers before becoming a communications assistant at the Texas State Aquarium, said more multimedia skills would have helped her.

“I feel it behooves today’s students to understand the importance of multimedia skills and convergence in the newsroom and that they will likely be expected to possess all of those skills,” she said. “This profession gets more complicated every day due to social media, and the fact that more publications are going digital.”

For many of the 2011 graduates, the specific training they would have liked to have received years ago is geared to what they do now.

Jessica Rule. Photo used with permission.

“I would’ve loved to learn more about the production side — lighting, techniques to get a better shot, how to use different equipment, etc.,” said Jessica Rule, the founder of her own advertising firm. “For me this would help as I outsource commercial production.”

Those working as journalists wished they were more prepared for the pace of the job, something that is often hard to replicate in a class environment.

Rebecca Jeffrey. Photo used with permission.

“I think I learned, not mastered, but learned everything I needed for my personal career path,” said Rebecca Jeffrey, who is an anchor at the ABC affiliate in Midland, Texas. “What I wish I better grasped was speed … By speed, I mean literally doing things faster. Shooting, writing, editing, all on a deadline.”

Katie Love, who has reported for four TV stations and is now at the NBC affiliate in Columbus, Ohio, says employers don’t care much about the degree you have, it’s about what you can do.

“Having a journalism major can get you the interview, but none of the news directors I have interviewed with have ever asked me what I majored in during college,” she

Katie Love. Photo used with permission.

said.

Real Work Most Beneficial

Over and over again these alumni talked about the benefits of hands-on work, including in student media and internships.

“I spent 3 years practicing the exact job I wanted to have after college. No one else can really say that, except maybe nursing majors,” said Andrea Drusch, who covers the Senate for National Journal and was previously a web producer for Politico.

“All the hands-on training was a big help, learning how to write, edit, shoot, etc.,” said Chris Blake, an associate multimedia editor for MLB.com, “because once you understand how to write, and ethics, the biggest thing in journalism is just to do it over and over again.”

For Paige McArdle, an autism education coordinator at the University of Nebraska Medical Center who will begin pursing a Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Georgia in the fall, a journalism education has helped give her a competitive advantage.

“I went on to a different field (mental health), but I feel the writing and reporting skills I acquired while in journalism school really help set me apart from my colleagues who did not get any training in these areas,” she said.

After graduation, Mark Bell joined Teach for America and has been teaching the most dreaded subject for journalists: math. But he still can connect his success back to journalism. He’s now a master teacher.

“My major in journalism helped me look at things from an outside perspective and concisely communicate the most important information,” he said. “This ability to investigate people, events and data and know which questions to ask is also something I use daily. I have to be able to reflect on my classroom and lessons as well as the lessons of other teachers at my school and summarize what went well and didn’t go well and communicate that to others. I also have to be able to analyze data and school trends and determine next steps.”

It’s those enduring skills and concepts that mattered most to these graduates, particularly writing, reporting and a strong ethical foundation. In an industry consumed by constant change, there is something reassuring about that.

Aaron Chimbel is an associate professor of professional practice in journalism at TCU’s Bob Schieffer College of Communication. Before returning to TCU in 2009, Chimbel worked at WFAA-TV in Dallas, where he won five Emmy Awards and a national Edward R. Murrow Award. Follow him on Twitter at @aaronchimbel.

The post What Matters for Journalism Grads Five Years Later: Writing, Communication Skills appeared first on MediaShift.

Students, at least many of those who graduated May 9 with a journalism degree from where I work, the School of Journalism at TCU’s Bob Schieffer College of Communication, seem satisfied with their experience. And I don’t write that to be self-serving. I am usually in the camp that we aren’t doing enough and evolving fast enough, which was the sentiment of University of Wisconsin-Madison senior Polo Rocha recently.

The students, however, say, generally, that they had a good experience and value the basics. Most of the students, even if they now don’t plan to work in journalism, say they would major in journalism again if they could do it all over, and nearly all of the rest say they would at least minor in journalism.

“Even though I’m not choosing journalism as my career, I would major in it again,” said Sierra Albertson, who plans to teach elementary or middle school English. “The skills I learned will help me in a variety of ways as I move forward.”

Photo courtesy of TCU and used with permission.

Curriculum Balancing Act

In November, Jan Schaffer wrote here that, “It’s time to think about trumpeting a journalism degree as the ultimate Gateway Degree, one that can get you a job just about anywhere.”

For several graduates, that means related industries like media relations, technical writing, or book publishing.

“As much as I enjoy my minor, English, and would have loved to major in English, I think journalism taught me practical skills I wouldn’t have acquired anywhere else,” said Molly Spain, who will be attend the Denver Publishing Institute this summer to get a certificate in publishing.

Maddy Brown, who will be working in the community relations department of the New York Jets, said the writing skills taught in the journalism major are something she values.

“The writing intensive aspect of the journalism school benefited me immensely,” she said. “I think I could go down numerous career paths because I am able to write.”

Matt Kupchin is joining a communication agency as a technical writer. He would have minored in journalism instead, he says, because the most useful classes he took are also required for the journalism minor, while other classes he took were less useful to him.

“I don’t want to be a reporter,” Kupchin said, “and most journalism classes are geared toward training to become a reporter.”

Other graduates, like Paulina Blanc, who is going back to school to get a second bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and plans to apply to medical school, are heading for vastly different fields. Still, Blanc too says she would have probably minored in journalism and appreciates the hands-on approach of faculty.

“The faculty actually cared about (their) students,” she said. “The faculty wanted to see us succeed and worked to ensure that we were not handed anything but rather worked hard to better our skills.”

The challenge, of course, is having a degree that prepares future journalists and students who will go on to related or even unrelated fields.

The result is that many students will want different, personalized experiences.

“The program is set-up in a way that allows students to try new platforms of journalism and find what they enjoy the most,” Albertson said.

That’s a challenge when developing curriculum and requires a delicate balance. We have to have a rigorous major that prepares journalists for now and the future and have to remain viable as a sort of new liberal arts major that prepares students for a wide array of later experiences.

Certainly, this is not a new issue. Journalism graduates have long taken various paths, from law school to public relations. As we evaluate what and how we teach journalism at a time when the industry is changing rapidly and funding for many programs is scarce, we have to figure out a way to do both to serve students like these.

What Students Wanted

What’s interesting is that among the 12 students who answered my questions, there was not a clear theme for what they wished they’d learned in our program that they didn’t. The answers ranged from more live shot experience and advanced video journalism to opinion writing. More digital skills was barely mentioned and code, which has received a lot of attention in journalism education circles, wasn’t mentioned at all — and we just offer a single one-hour coding class.

Some students suggested requiring a graphic design class and others recommended requiring an internship. We offer both, but require neither.

“If you know Photoshop or InDesign coming out of college, you’re 10 times more marketable. Every journalism kid should know about those services,” said Nikola Yerkan, who is joining technical writing company.

When asked what students feel most benefited them, there was consensus: lots of writing and reporting and close interaction with faculty.

“I would say the most beneficial part would be the hands-on experience,” said Evan Folan, who will be anchor/reporter at KVIA-TV in El Paso, Texas. “The professors did a wonderful job providing us with resources and outlets to perfect our craft.”

Evan Folan / Photo used with permission.

“The personal interaction with professors benefited me the most,” said Samantha Calimbahin, who will work as the social content moderator for a sports blog with hopes of becoming a TV sports reporter.

Advice for Journalism Students

These new journalism school graduates also had similar advice for journalism students: get involved! They recommended working in student media, securing internships, and networking in professional organizations.

“Get involved in external journalism organizations,” said Mario Montalvo, who is working as a production assistant for a television station. “I’ve made some invaluable career connections and some great friends because of them. But don’t just sign up, really get involved. Make an effort to go to workshops and mixers, and really try to meet people. It’s the best thing I’ve done.”

Hannah Kuhns, who is pursuing a variety of communication jobs, has some practical advice: “Learn time management skills. Yesterday. Also, even though you’re always working on a story, always have at least three other story ideas on deck.”

Students also, at least after graduation, say they see benefits in pushing themselves.

“If you’re passionate about issues and our community, this is the place to be,” said Kayla Mulliniks, who wants to pursue a career in political satire. “Don’t rely on simple stories, always try and look for something new even if it’s scary.”

“Try new things,” Albertson said. “Experiment with new ways of telling a story by using tools you haven’t used before. Be creative.”

Looking back, students do, it seems, appreciate a lot of what we’ve tried to teach.

Aaron Chimbel is an associate professor of professional practice in the School of Journalism at TCU’s Bob Schieffer College of Communication. Before returning to TCU in 2009, Chimbel worked at WFAA-TV in Dallas, where he won five Emmy Awards and a national Edward R. Murrow Award. Follow him on Twitter at @aaronchimbel.

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If we value clear writing and the ability to communicate clearly with a wide variety of people, we should value teaching our students the basics of computer languages and digital communications. These skills will only be more important going forward, and more importantly code, a broad term encompassing several computing languages, is the future of digital and global communication. If we don’t expose our students to this — students we want to lead the next generation of journalism and communication — we are doing them a disservice.

In fact, it would be smart for universities to add a general coding class to the core curriculum required of students in all fields. For journalism and mass communication programs, it’s essential.

Photo by Lord James and used here with Creative Commons license.

Debate Often Too Simplistic

This discussion requires a more nuanced approach.

The debate about coding for journalists often goes awry. Sometimes, like in 2013’s lightning rod post by The Atlantic’s Olga Khazan in which she said learning to code would not help aspiring reporters, the actual scope of what many code-proponents support is lost. The goal is not, and should not be, to make every student an expert programmer.

What is important is to expose all students to the basics of coding and to give them a baseline of understanding this language, the language of the future.

In other words, for journalism students, just a single course is important for all majors, and the opportunity to go in greater depth and learn more languages should be an option.

One required course. Depending on what is included in the class — and what other courses are also required — the necessary foundational could be accomplished in a one- or two-hour class, instead of the traditional three-hour class for many programs. Again, the idea is not to make every student an expert in this aspect of journalism and presenting information, but to give them a taste and understanding of code.

To think of it in another way, compare it to an introductory broadcast course that many programs require of all majors. The expectation at the end of the course is not that all students are then ready to go work at TV and radio stations. It’s to give all students a broad understanding of a key aspect of journalism and to prepare them for more specialized courses later. Some may take advanced broadcast reporting and producing classes, and some may not. But they will have all been exposed to that specialty, and hopefully have an appreciation for broadcast journalism and be able to identify when video is a good storytelling form to use.

Code is an important way to convey information, as is video. Most journalism programs have curriculums that give some broad principles and skills and then allow students to specialize as they advance. Coding is simply an additional one.

In addition to broadcast, think of photojournalism, design and computer-assisted reporting. Most of us probably hope all of our students have at least a basic understanding of several, if not all, of those to be competent journalists, as was shown in a recent Poynter survey.

The nice thing about teaching code is that there are lots of free online resources, like code.org and Codecademy — and Cindy Royal’s codeactually.com designed specifically for journalists — which allow for new teaching methods and less classroom time dedicated to these skills.

What is important is for students who don’t become programmers — and most won’t — to be able understand how information can be gathered and presented using code and how to use it for journalism, even if they aren’t the ones actually building the project. Another comparison: someone who can communicate in Spanish, but who won’t be writing a novel in it. We need to produce students who can communicate about what they want code to do. To do that, they have to understand what it can do.

Photo by Marjan Krebelj and used here with Creative Commons license.

Take Code Beyond J-Schools

Of course, the implications go beyond journalism. This is where journalism programs can become leaders on campus. By taking hold of this type of communication, journalism schools have the opportunity to offer an important class for all students at colleges and universities, something that would fit nicely in a digital media or media literacy course that could generate many credit hours (which is how many universities allocate resources) for journalism programs, and potentially more resources because of that.

Journalism programs can take the lead and collaborate with other communication, computer science and engineering departments to not only improve journalism and journalism students’ understanding of digital technology, but to help educate all college students. If we don’t, other departments, like those listed above, will.

Teaching students about code should be part of a broad liberal arts education. We don’t compare learning a language to skills because we know you learn a lot about thinking and culture from learning a new language.

Code is about more than just a shiny new thing; it’s about a better understanding of our world and producing better communication and journalism.

Aaron Chimbel is an assistant professor of professional practice in the School of Journalism at TCU’s Bob Schieffer College of Communication. Before returning to TCU in 2009, Chimbel worked at WFAA-TV in Dallas, where he won five Emmy Awards and a national Edward R. Murrow Award. Follow him on Twitter at @aaronchimbel.

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