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Journalism Education
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To cite this article: (2001) Journalism Education, Journalism Studies, 2:2, 281-299, DOI:
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Journalism Studies, Volume 2, Number 2, 2001, pp. 281299
Debate
Journalism Education
We are moving into a new century with rapidly changing governments, economies, and social
issues. Where is journalism education in this mix? Is journalism education ahead of the citizenry
or behind what citizens will need to know to make critical social, political and economic decisions
for our world. Four journalism educators provide our next debate on how they see journalism
education in South Africa, the United States of America, Slovenia and India.
Eronini Megwa argues that journalism education is education for democracy. Terry Hynes
argues for collaboration instead of competition between communication specialisations. Dejan
Vercic challenges old world ways of looking at communication education, and Kavita Karan
describes the progress of journalism education in India.
Democracy without Citizens: the
challenge for South African
journalism education
ERONINI R. MEGWA
Peninsula Technikon, South Africa
Introduction
The more things change, the more they
stay the same.
The election of a black government in
1994 signicantly transformed South
Africa politically into an exemplary
democratic African state. However,
apartheids ghost still lurks around and
is yet to be exorcised from the nations
media system. Six years later, its me-
dia landscape remains racially skewed
in stafng, content and editorial focus.
This anomalous situation has provoked
current public discussion about the role
of journalism in consolidating and nur-
turing the countrys young democracy.
The debate is largely driven by a grow-
ing public perception, particularly
among the black population, that the
media are racist in the manner in which
they represent black people. This no-
tion is premised on the belief that
South Africas media content does not
reect the interests, aspirations and ex-
periences of the majority of the popu-
lation. The recent inquiry into media
racism conducted by South Africas Hu-
man Rights Commission was largely
inuenced by these perceptions.
South Africas media are not mono-
lithic. Before the 1994 elections, ve
corporate monopolies had totalitarian
control over the structure, operation
and content of the media in the coun-
try. There was also the alternative
press, set up to counteract the ideologi-
cal orientation of the corporate press in
the apartheid era. Today, there ap-
pears to be a major shift in patterns of
media ownership and control: the
alternative press has disappeared; six
instead of ve corporate groups now
dominate the print media sector; there
is black and foreign ownership. Major
restructuring with far-reaching changes
has taken place in the broadcasting
industry. In theory, the internet has a
potential for democratising access to
historically excluded groups in the
country; however, at present access is
limited to a small group of wealthy peo-
ISSN 1461-670X print/ISSN 1469-9699 online/01/020281-19 2001 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/14616700120042123
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282 DEBATE
ple usually operating out of their
ofces. The changes in the media own-
ership structure and control patterns of
South Africas media are supercial
and have minimal and inconsiderable
democratic benets for the majority of
South Africans. However, they have
profound implications for journalism
education and journalism practice in
the country.
Structural Changes and Journalism
Practice
South African journalism exists in an
interdependent system where its main
clientthe media industryfunctions
and survives on an economic and in-
dustrial logic that sees audience mem-
bers as commodities to be sold to the
highest bidder. This logic is inherently
discriminatory. It not only attaches
monetary value to humans but also de-
mands that the greater the number, the
more value it has. It goes further by
classifying people in terms of how
much they earn and where they live.
This economic model may work well in
advanced democracies of the West,
where the majority are white and usu-
ally more afuent than non-whites.
However, in a country such as South
Africa, where the majority are black
and poor, this rationale perpetuates the
system of racial discrimination and con-
jures nerve-chilling images of the ex-
clusion and deprivation suffered by
black people under apartheid.
South Africas news medias inordi-
nate dependence on advertising as a
major source of funding limits its
journalistic function and constricts it
from producing a politically sophisti-
cated and informed citizenry. As a me-
dia access control mechanism,
advertising denies a majority of South
Africans access to the news media,
sties media pluralism, and curtails
freedom of expression. How can the
majority of South Africans be expected
to hold their government accountable if
they do not have access to the media
and are not properly informed? South
Africas news media are urban based,
with elite content, published in English
or Afrikaans and directed at a small
and usually afuent target market.
Many black people live in the rural ar-
eas and do not speak English or
Afrikaans at home. This media orien-
tation perpetuates a vicious cycle: in-
formation for the rich white minority and
none for the poor black majority. The
perception is then that whites make
informed political decisions and intelli-
gently challenge the government,
whereas blacks wallow in ignorance
and blindly support the government
even when it blunders. This is the pic-
ture one confronts as you traverse the
rich but restricted media terrain in the
country. And the image you see is a
reincarnated version of apartheids me-
dia structure. The tragedy is that the
appeal of the marketplace-of-ideas
model is so compelling to the extent
that it ably hides its inadequacies. And
herein lies the dilemma of South
Africas journalism: how to balance its
economic essence with its cultural and
democratic mandate. It will be difcult
for South Africas media to continue to
operate on the logic of prot making
and competition and still be able to play
a useful democratic role in the country.
Journalism: watchdog or
social-democratic role?
The need for journalism to full a criti-
cal informational role is not only crucial
but also urgent in South Africa, where
the majority of the population are illiter-
ate, rural, poor, and black. It is necess-
ary for journalism to uncover and
publicise political corruption and
inefciency in government. South
Africa needs this type of journalism so
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283 DEBATE
as to deal with the general perception
of Africa as having corrupt and inept
leaders. South African journalists have
been twitching their liberal journalistic
muscles admirably since 1999. On the
other hand, democratic journalism is
not all about watchdogging the govern-
ment. In fact, in the South African situ-
ation, there are equally if not more
important and pressing issues, such as
HIV/AIDS and illiteracy, which, if not
addressed urgently, threaten to scuttle
the democratic gains the country has
made so far. There is a deep mistrust
that exists among black people about
journalisms legitimacy to serve as an
adequate conduit for expressing their
views, defending their interests and
protecting their rights as citizens.
Journalism Education: 15 years on
Journalism education in South Africa
has been dominated by the tech-
nikonscareer-based skills-oriented
tertiary institutionsand the universi-
ties. However, since the 1994 elec-
tions, non-governmental organisations
have been offering mid-career training
for journalists. The technikons empha-
sise skills while the universities stress
theory over practice. All this, irre-
sistibly, points to a need to merge the
two orientations in order for journalism
education to produce journalists who
are well equipped to understand and
explain the dynamics and complexities
of the change that has taken place and
continues to take place in the country.
To accomplish this will mean that the
technikons and universities have suc-
ceeded in washing off apartheids
shrew stink, which has for so long pol-
luted journalism education in the coun-
try.
At present, the country is engaged in
a soul search, intensely questioning the
adequacy of its educational system,
and earnestly looking for sustainable
formulas to deal with the demands of
democracy, globalisation and infor-
mation technology. Journalism educa-
tors are expected to lead the debate
about how to induce genuine and
meaningful media transformation that
will be benecial to all. And there
seems to be a mindshift in South
Africas journalistic circles that journal-
ism education has too important a part
to play in deepening and broadening
the countrys democratic processes for
it not to be multisectoral, multicultural,
and multiperspectival.
In recognition of this, journalists and
academics are working together to
drive processes underpinning the Na-
tional Qualications Framework (NQF).
These processes recognise the
changes taking place in the country
and seek to produce journalism gradu-
ates with the hands and minds
needed in journalism practice in the
new South Africa. They also realises
that apartheids legacy lives on and has
become a bitter kola nut in its mouth
its taste lingers on the taste buds for a
very long time and takes a lot of gar-
gling and swishing to wash off. Be-
cause South Africa is a two-world
countryone rich and white and the
other poor and blackits transform-
ation will not be complete if journalism
education does not become sensitive
to this reality. To be able to do this,
journalism education will, among other
things, re-examine its reliance on the
objectivity paradigm in teaching news
reporting with a view to replacing that
paradigm with a model that recognises
that reporters are not disinterested ac-
tors but are active participants in the
process of news production. What is
needed is a paradigm that will create a
real African public spherean African
marketplace of ideasfor journalists to
change the gloomy pictures of Africa
and Africans in the heads of many
white and black people. What is
needed is a framework that encour-
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284 DEBATE
ages South Africans not only to read
and question critically, but also to be
sensitive to the instruments of change
in the country. We need a paradigm
that will help to systematically repair
the damage apartheid and colonialism
have wrought on the psyche of black
South Africans, and, to some extent,
white South Africans. We need a jour-
nalism that will instil self-condence in
Africans and get them to value their
continent, their leaders (the good ones)
and cultures. South Africa needs a
journalism that will help to break the
horrendous culture of silence and ac-
quiescence imposed on black people
by apartheid. The utilitarian value of the
objectivity paradigm has expired and is
no longer a useful tool to accomplish
these important tasks.
As information technology grows in
importance and becomes pervasive in
the lives of South Africans, journalism
educators will be faced with the oner-
ous task of teaching students how to
use these technologies of information
to produce news media content that all
South Africans can use to make in-
formed political decisions. Globalisa-
tion, the demands of widespread
illiteracy, poverty, racism, xenophobia,
sexism and democracy are redening
news work and, by implication, journal-
ism education in the country. The
emerging black market will have a pro-
found and dramatic effect on how the
current media system denes audience
and target markets.
To respond effectivel y to these de-
mands, it will be imperative for journal-
ism educators and practitioners to be
multiskilled and multilingual, and able
to use their hands and minds and
have a little heart for people and things
that do not look like themselves.
Part of journalism educations chal-
lenge, therefore, in the next decade
and a half will be to lead the debate
around the adequacy of the logic of
prot making and competition currently
driving news media work in the country.
It will have to deal brutally with the
discrepancy between demand and sup-
ply, and the system of discrimination
inherent in the structure of prot-driven
media in the country. In attempting to
do this, journalism education will face a
stiff challenge from the current corpo-
rate monopolies and the advertising in-
dustry. It will be constrained as much
as the news media industry it serves by
these powerful market forces and capi-
talist interests. But it will have to deal
with all these contradictions for its own
sake and in the interest of democracy
for all citizens. In this respect,
diversity will have a signicant effect
on journalism. It will assume a value,
an economic value. A news organis-
ation that responds to a diversity of
interests will be described as a
transformed and quality organis-
ation. Therefore, survival will be linked
to how a news organisation handles
issues of diversity in its stafng and
content and editorial direction. This will
lead to the improvement of the quality
of journalism in the country because
good journalism is not just journalism
that relentlessly pursues the truth and
holds government accountable and
transparent. It is also journalism that
promotes and encourages the partici-
pation of all South African citizens in
public debate about governance, rec-
onciliation, and reconstruction of lives
broken by a hideous system of ex-
clusion and deprivation.
Journalism schools will be increas-
ingly involved in industry training,
reskilling working journalists to function
effectivel y in an ever-changing multi-
cultural society and to gain access to a
wide array of news sources they are
not able to reach because of language
barriers. The internet will continue to
have impact on news work and online
journalism will constitute a signicant
part of journalism education. Journal-
ism research, a neglected area of jour-
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285 DEBATE
nalism education in the country, will in
future become an integral part of the
journalism curriculum. Research will
become as important as technical skills
because it will be needed for the under-
standing and reporting of the complexi-
ties of South African society. This will
give rise to investigative journalism, as
more and more journalists are
equipped with the skills to brave this
area. Journalism schools, having
gained the trust of the news media
industry and particularly of editors, will
take on the role of watching the media.
As the news media grow in inuence in
human affairs, journalistic ethics will
become important. The current limita-
tions of the news media to serve the
interests of poor and rural communities
will lead to the setting up of alternative
sources of information.
Conclusion
While it is important to acknowledge
the necessity of the economic logic on
which the media marketplace-of-ideas
concept is based, it is equally useful to
understand that media ownership
change alone in South Africa will not be
sufcient to transform South Africas
media content. Black people could own
all the media in the country and edit all
its dailies and weeklies, but as long as
the news media operate solely on an
economic logic of prot making and
competition they would own and edit
only newspapers that remain aloof from
the majority of their people. The sol-
ution is to strike a balance between the
economic imperatives of prot making
and survivability and the democratic
necessities of participation and devel-
opment. This calls for corporate media
owners to show courage in reinvesting
some of their prots into social
projectsthe type of courage shown
by their political counterparts in bring-
ing about non-racial political democ-
racy to the countryto reduce illiteracy
and poverty and to increase media ac-
cess to the rural areas. It is not only
good for business, it is good for journal-
ism, it is good for all South Africans,
and it is safe for democracy. Anything
short of this sacrice and courage will
not only perpetuate the apartheid
status quo of stiing a diversity of
voices and constricting media pluralism
but will inevitably amount to running a
democracy without citizens.
US Journalism and Journalism
Education at the Beginning of
the Twenty-First Century
TERRY HYNES
University of Florida, USA.
The standards and practices of journal-
ism in the United States at the begin-
ning of the twenty-rst century are as
much a product of their culture and
times as were the standards and prac-
tices of journalism at the nations be-
ginning in the late eighteenth century.
Note, for example, the lead paragraph
of Isaiah Thomass account of the bat-
tles of Lexington and Concord in 1775,
published in his revolutionary newspa-
per, the Massachusetts Spy:
AMERICANS! Forever bear in mind the
BATTLE of LEXINGTON!where British
Troops, unmolested and unprovoked,
wantonly, and in a most inhuman man-
ner red upon and killed a number of our
countrymen, then robbed them of their
provisions, ransacked, plundered and
burnt their houses! Nor could the tears of
defenceless [sic] women, some of whom
were in the pains of childbirth, the cries
of helpless babes, nor the prayers of old
age, conned to beds of sickness, ap-
pease their thirst for blood!or divert
them from their DESIGN of MURDER
and ROBBERY! (3 May 1775, p. 3)
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286 DEBATE
Hardly the objective reporting that
twenty-rst-century US journalists re-
gard as the standard for today. Yet an
authentic example of the best prac-
tices of eighteenth-century journalism,
whose function was more to persuade
than to inform.
By the late twentieth century, the
heritage of nearly a century of positivist
and pragmatist ideologies in US culture
tended to be a metaphysics without the
meta because of their reliance on
sense perceptions as the only valid ba-
sis of human knowledge, precise think-
ing and meaning. A parallel social
science ideology favored applying to
human beings systematic, theory-build-
ing methods originally used to under-
stand the physical world. These two
dominant ideologies were grafted to
Enlightenment notions of the per-
fectibility of human beings and the as-
sumed superior capability of human
rational capacity.
The resulting palimpsest of ideolo-
gies in the broader US culture under-
pinned journalism and contributed to
the development of journalists, and a
journalism practice, less tolerant than
their forbears of ambiguity, contradic-
tion and paradox and more prone to
demand certainty from their sources
and themselves. Various layers of the
palimpsest reinforced beliefs in the
ability of humans (including journalists)
to arrive rationally at absolutely clear
knowledge of the world and to do so in
systematic ways that accounted for
lifes variables.
The impulse to achieve clarity, cer-
tainty and control which infused the
growing dominant social science ap-
proaches to knowing the world, how-
ever, interplayed with the journalists
enduring goal to tell a good story, a
process that tends to require that the
best reporters/storytellers immerse
themselves in the messiness of particu-
lars that are part of daily life and are
essential components of both good sto-
ries in ction and good reporting in
news.
In its ideal representation, journalism
in the US has long been regarded as
the institution best able to provide peo-
ple with the information they need to
govern themselves. The ethic of jour-
nalism at the beginning of the twenty-
rst century stipulates in its ideal form
that journalists and their reports should
be fair, accurate and balanced in pro-
viding citizens with information and that
the constructed context of a story as
well as its individual parts should rep-
resent those same elements. The
credibility of journalists and journalism
depends on meeting those standards.
The performance of US journalists
on election night 7 November 2000 and
in the weeks following is a wonderful
example of the attempt to apply these
standards and of the interplay noted
above. This extended news story rep-
resented core journalism values: it was
a story of major signicance to a large
number of people, and the main issue
involved (i.e. the election of the nations
president) is central to journalisms
function in a democratic society. In
short, it was an ideal situation in which
to apply the journalistic ideal.
On the plus side in applying the
ideal, extensive resources of many me-
dia organisations were brought to bear
to report the story in detail. Reporters
for print, broadcast and online media
descended on Florida and covered the
story as fully as humanly possible in
the geographic regions where contro-
versy was strongest. Most journalists
covering the story brought consider-
able knowledge and expertise to their
reporting; the less expert worked to
create their own crash courses in
Florida election law and other subjects
relevant to the total story. Reporters
found multiple sources to tell various
sides of a multifaceted story. Coverage
was intense and sustained during the
few weeks when the story and its out-
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287 DEBATE
come commanded center stage in the
nations political drama. In short, the
story reected some of the best of jour-
nalism in American culture: the best of
the journalists from the various media
dug into the issues and reported com-
plex legal questions intelligently, fairly
and in nuanced fashion.
There were some shortcomings,
however. Because of the imperative to-
ward certainty and a professional en-
vironment that privileges speed, the
story emerged on the election night
stage through a double failure of accu-
racy in reporting the elections winner,
at least in some television reports.
First, Al Gore was misdeclared the win-
ner. Then, after that declaration was
retracted, it was followed by a second
misdeclaration that George W. Bush
was the winner. In a profession, viz.
journalism, where the fundamental
building block of credibility is factual
and contextual accuracy, the awed
announcement of the winner at the out-
set marred the application of the
journalistic ideal.
In addition, as the story unfolded in
subsequent weeks, some journalists
did not seem to understand fully the
extent to which they and their stories
focus were being managed by the pol-
itical communication specialists on ei-
ther sideor, if they did understand,
they often seemed unable to do more
than offer a one side says this fol-
lowed by the other side says that
reporting model, again rooted in the
belief that such clearly dichotomised
categorisations would represent the
truth adequately and accurately.
The election of the president was
unquestionably the major national
news story of the extended moment.
Every reporter covering the election
was primed to report what he or she
knew at the earliest moment the infor-
mation was conrmed by sufcient and
sufciently reliable sources. But, given
the competitive pressures of practising
journalism in a prot-oriented business
environment and, among other things,
the human and culturally cultivated in-
clination to beat ones opponent, some
journalists rushed to report a story or a
piece of a story before all the evidence
and information were available.
Journalism in that instance was as
perfect and imperfect, as clean and as
messy as the democratic process it
serves in the US. Journalism in the US
at the beginning of the twenty-rst cen-
tury is a craft, culture and institution
with as manyand sometimes more
of the accomplishments, shortcomings,
contributions, aws, successes and
failures of other major political, social
and economic institutions of a complex
democracy.
The practice of journalism is not con-
ducted in the rareed atmosphere of its
ideal denition. As the election story
illustrated, faster media have created a
perceived need for stories to be rushed
to their audiences. When technology
permits near-instantaneous trans-
mission, scooping the competition may
not leave time to conrm the facts.
Accuracy suffers.
Journalists who fail to appreciate the
role of public relations and its variations
(e.g. political communications) in our
society and who fail to understand the
reciprocal inuences of public relations
and journalism on each other are
sometimes ill prepared to sort through
sources and evidence and create an
accurate and balanced report of events
and issues.
As practised within or alongside
other social, economic and political in-
stitutions, the idealised ethic of journal-
ism is often played out in conict with
other values (e.g. competition for read-
ers or ratings, competition to be rst
with the news). In most cases, journal-
ism as practised in the US is a busi-
ness. In some instances, journalism is
the core business of the organisation
(e.g. newspapers); in other instances it
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is one of several, or even an ancillary
business of the organisation (e.g. radio,
television). The overriding imperative
for a business to be protable for its
owners or stockholders sometimes
plays against basic journalism values.
The Implications for Journalism
Education
What are the implications of these
thoughts for journalism education at the
beginning of the twenty-rst century?
How does journalism, as ideal and as
practice, affect the formal preparation
of future journalists? And how does the
academic context in which teaching
and learning about journalism occur
enhance or limit effective formal prep-
aration of future journalists?
Twenty-rst-century journalism edu-
cation, like journalism practice itself,
resonates against a palimpsest of tradi-
tions. In US universities, the hegemony
of subjects underwent a sea change in
the twentieth century. In large mea-
sure, the German-research-university
model shifted the ground of the aca-
demic stronghold of the arts and hu-
manities in US academic culture to
newly dominant or emerging elds like
the physical and natural sciences, psy-
chology, and sociology. Journalism
education, rooted in a curricular model
comprised of writing, reporting and ed-
iting in the early twentieth century, was
hard pressed to negotiate the new ter-
rain of the social sciences that had
become dominant by mid-century.
Newspaper publishers seeking work-
ers better prepared to join their staffs
also inuenced journalism curricula.
For example, especially at Midwest uni-
versities, publishers pressured for ad-
vertising to be included in the
curriculum. From another direction,
journalism education was as ill pre-
pared as professional journalists to sort
out its relationship to the emerging me-
dia of radio and television and to the
related functions of advertising and
public relations. The result was intellec-
tually odd combinations of emphases/
sequences in journalism departments
and colleges parsed by purpose (e.g.
journalism, advertising, and public rela-
tions) alongside and coiled with em-
phases/sequences parsed by delivery
system (e.g. newspaper journalism,
broadcasting). The uneasy curricular
syntax that resulted haunts journalism
education even today as it struggles
again with the still emerging technology
of the internet and the web which al-
ready is bringing together print and
broadcast forms of news delivery in
unprecedented ways.
Journalism educators in US universi-
ties work hard to maintain and build
their programmes within the uneasy al-
liance that results with university ad-
ministrators who still are not always
convinced that journalism is a subject
worthy of academic study and with pro-
fessionals who still sometimes think
that university instruction does not
have enough practical value for future
professionals. If one substituted law
schools or medical colleges for journal-
ism programmes in this triangular rela-
tionship, the grotesqueries of the
situation would be evident.
To improve the situation vis-a` -vis
university administrators and to provide
the best possible learning experience
for future journalists, journalism educa-
tors must be good citizens of their uni-
versities. If the universitys mission
includes research as well as teaching,
then journalism faculty must contribute
to the research mission as well as the
teaching mission in a manner similar to
that of other major campus pro-
grammes. In a research university, a
journalism faculty that publishes little or
no research or does not present its
creative work in a juried venue is like a
newspaper that never publishes inves-
tigative reports: it may survive and it
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may even be of pretty good quality; but
it wont be one of the nations best. A
further challenge for journalism educa-
tors vis-a` -vis professional journalists
still sceptical about the value of aca-
demic research is to conduct and pub-
lish research and creative work in a
way that illustrates to working journal-
ists the value to professional practice of
the knowledge discovered in the re-
search process, whether the research
is basic or applied.
The complex world in which journal-
ism is practised is the world for which
journalism educators try to prepare
their students. This means it continues
to be important to teach basic and tra-
ditional journalistic skills like writing, re-
porting and editing. This means it
continues to be important for future
journalists to study traditional and basic
subjects in the liberal arts and sciences
so they will have a strong foundation of
substantial knowledge.
But it also means it is important to
teach future journalists how to practise
their craft for delivery in many forms
and in a global, rather than a narrower,
context. It means that future journalists
need to understand the economic, cul-
tural and political pressures internal to
news organisations which affect a
journalists ability to gather and report
the newsor that affect even the
denition of news in a particular organ-
isation. It means that the conceptual
and theoretical courses that are now
common in journalism curricula are as
essential to twenty-rst-century journal-
ism education as basic news writing
and reporting. It means, too, that future
journalists need to know more about
more subjects, in greater depth and
with a global perspective in order to
analyse evidence throughout the news-
gathering process. They also need to
know at least some subjects in great
depth, especially in scientic and tech-
nical elds that affect our long-term
ability to sustain our various forms of
community life on the planet. This may
require even more advanced formal
education than is currently the norm.
Learning more about more things will
take longer than the normal university
degree programmes, so students need
to learn more critical and analytical
thinking skills that will serve them well
for lifelong learning.
Also, in my view, future journalists
will benet from learning the standards
of the craft in a context with other com-
munications practices like advertising
and public relations. Advertising, jour-
nalism and public relations are not the
same thing, not the same academic
subject, not the same professional
practice. Why, then, would one argue
for combining them into the same aca-
demic administrative unit? Because the
three are almost inextricably intercon-
nected in the practice of journalism in
American culture. Although it is easy to
see how advertising could survive with-
out journalism and how public relations
might also survive without journalism in
twenty-rst-century practice, it is much
harder to see how journalism, as cur-
rently institutionalised, could survive
without the other two. This is especially
ironic, I think, given the propensity of
many journalists to denounce and deni-
grate the practices of both advertising
and public relations. Most journalism
publications and programmes are sup-
ported by advertising revenue. That
revenue represents the difference be-
tween surviving and not surviving.
Many stories reported by journalists are
supplied by or enhanced by sources
that come under the umbrella of public
relations.
Future professionals in all three are-
nas are better served, I think, if they
can learn the standards and ethic of
the professional practice to which they
aspire over against the standards and
ethic of their competing yet intercon-
nected rivals. Take the umbrella of
truth, for example. All three areas pro-
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fess to tell the truth in some form. It
can be fairly transparent to see the
boundaries of truth in advertising,
which, for example, admits to stretch-
ing truth to serve a creative persuas-
ive intent. Public relations
professionals, too, are generally trans-
parent in acknowledging that their
selection of the smaller truths that
contribute to telling and understanding
the larger truth is focused on strategi-
cally managing the relationships that
are their primary concern. Journalism,
in its idealised twenty-rst-century US
form, is ostensibly devoid of such self-
interest; in practice journalists are
sometimes less reective than other
practitioners about their failure to
achieve this ideal in the throes of work-
ing a story. Future professionals in all
three areas can learn a great deal by
engaging with their counterparts in
these interconnected elds to better
appreciate the strengths and shortcom-
ings of the standards and ethic of each
eld as it affects their own professional
practice. In my view, this kind of en-
lightened interaction in university study
might lead to greater appreciation
among these professionals about the
contributions each makes to the other.
There is already sufcient vitriol and
animosity exuded as a result of recog-
nising the shortcomings of each eld
vis-a` -vis the others (witness the ongo-
ing use of such denigrating terms as
hack, ack and spin).
It sometimes strikes me as ironic that
many journalists think so little of the
education beat or the education sto-
ries they are assigned to cover. Often
the coverage of education and its insti-
tutions is riddled with cliche s about ele-
mentary and high school students
lamenting their return to school in Au-
gust and the demise of their summer
freedom or with a superciality that fails
to grasp the essence and complexity of
major research discoveries at universi-
ties. This failure by journalists (some-
times arising from a conict-centered
denition of news) to appreciate the
importance of reporting about edu-
cation strikes me as ironic because the
characteristics and roles of students
and journalists, of education and jour-
nalism, in a democracy are, I think,
quite similar.
Students, like journalists, are ex-
pected to be attentive observers; to
seek knowledge through reading, ob-
servation and research; to apply their
mental capacities purposefully to ac-
quire understanding of a subject. Both
students and journalists are expected
to inquire into, investigate and examine
evidence closely; to give it careful
thought; to follow the evidence with
disinterest, except for the goal of
nding the truth, and to reect about
the implications and applications of evi-
dence so discovered. Students who do
this well and become professionals at it
are called scholars, and they are ex-
pected to share their scholarship, at
least with other scholars in their elds.
Journalists who do this well are called,
well, theyre called journalists, and they
are expected to share their expertise
with a broad audience so that the latter
may be better informed about the world
in which they live and better connected
to those with whom they share that
world.
Journalism education, like the pro-
fessional practice for which educators
prepare students, is as perfect and im-
perfect, as clean and as messy as the
practice itself. The biased, partisan
journalism of the eighteenth century
evolved by ts and starts to the im-
proved journalism of today because
professionals continually examined, re-
examined and reinvented basic stan-
dards and practices in relation to
changes in other relevant social institu-
tions, changes in the varying publics
they sought to serve and changes in
the structures and functions of journal-
ism itself. Journalism education has
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ism itself. Journalism education has
changed similarly from a skills-focused
curriculum to one infused by concep-
tual and theoretical courses. One cer-
tainty for the future is that journalists
and journalism educators alike must be
as attentive as their predecessors and
contemporaries in engaging in the cri-
tique of both if journalism professional
practice and education for it are to sur-
vive and meet the needs for which they
exist.
The Future: technology, media
and telecommunications (TMT )
or dust
DEJAN VERCIC
Prestop Communications, and the
University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.
The future of communication education
in Europe has already begun. It can be
seen in tensions between student de-
mand (what students want) and institu-
tional supply (what universities offer).
Disequilibria are increasing on three
dimensions determined by the ques-
tions: what, why and how to study.
The First Disequilibrium: what?
I was studying for my doctoral degree
at one of those prestigious universities
in the UK where you can study any
kind of communication as long as it is
located within another academic disci-
pline. At the top of the UKs academic
hierarchy, communication is an object,
not a subject of research and edu-
cation. It is only at the new universi-
ties (also known as ex-polytechnics)
that communication can be studied as
a subject on its ownas advertising,
corporate communication, journalism,
marketing communication, public rela-
tions, etc. These new places are with-
out academic prestige, so they have to
compete for students by accommodat-
ing to their tastes.
After completing the degree in the
UK, I returned to Slovenia and started
teaching corporate communication at
the University of Ljubljana. At the Fac-
ulty of Social Sciences we have a De-
partment of Communication with
Theoretical Communication Studies,
Journalism and Marketing Communica-
tions as study areas. My subject is
located within Marketing Communica-
tions. We have more applicants to our
programme than places, so the ad-
mission is limited based on the pre-
vious scholarly achievements of
applicants. The result is that we get the
best part of each years cohort entering
the university, rivalled only by Medi-
cine. This, however, bears no relation-
ship to how many faculty or assistants
we can employ, how many research
grants we get, or any other material
indicator of our academic standing
within the university. As my colleagues
at other European universities tell me,
this situation, where communication is
admitted to a university at all, is closer
to a rule than an exception.
In Europe, communication, specially
applied communication such as adver-
tising, corporate communication, mar-
keting communication, etc., is high on
the student agenda but low on the aca-
demic agenda.
The Second Disequilibrium: why?
European universities see themselves
as generators and depositories of sci-
entic knowledge that is disinterested
as long as it is scientic and loses its
academic standing as soon as it be-
comes pragmatic (useful in the dirty
world of realities outside the ivory
tower). The irony of this proposition is
that it holds more truth for social than
for natural sciences. That we may live
in a knowledge society that praises
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intellectual capital has no effect; in-
deed, for the European academic es-
tablishment the very notion of
intellectual capital is an oxymoron: in-
tellect and capital do not mingle. This,
however, is not how students see it.
As more intangible intellect converts
into tangible moneyand this can only
be done by communicationstudents
want to acquire knowledge on (or, even
better, in) TMT. While this abbrevia-
tion has been invented by nancial an-
alysts to describe a sector of the new
economy worth high risks, but poten-
tially therefore bringing high returns,
students see it as an area of study they
would like to master and enter. Tech-
nology, media and telecommunications
are seen as the communication to be
in today and tomorrow, so within com-
munication studies applied communi-
cation is gaining ground in all its forms
(advertising, corporate communication,
marketing communication, but also just
as new media, the internet, etc.).
For students, this is self-evident. Not
for academia.
More and more, students see com-
munication education as an entry ticket
into the new world of TMT. They want
to study it to become intellectual capi-
talists. European academia tolerates
that with disgust.
The Third Disequilibrium: how?
Academic education in Europe is a
transmission of knowledge from older
to younger generations. The older you
the are, the more you know. The rea-
son for that is simple: scientic knowl-
edge is based on disinterested
contemplation and this takes time. The
more time you have spent on the later,
the more you have of the former.
(Funny, but this equally holds for peo-
ple and for institutions.) This has
worked in an analogue world, but it
does not apply in a digital age.
Although the media may not have
become the messages, the production
of the messages has never been so
much dependent on the media. TMT,
with the internet as its most visible
symptom, is a sector in which you learn
not by contemplating, but by playing.
And, as things stand at the moment,
students are better at games than their
teachers and therefore students know
more than their teachers. This is the
problem of contemporary education in
communication: you cannot teach your
students about it, you can only enable
them to learn it. And university profes-
sors are not of a type to admit that they
may not know more than their students.
If that was the case, what is the use of
the distinction between professors and
students? This situation is frustrating
both sides, professors and students
alike, but for different reasons.
Communication, materially captured
in the TMT abbreviation, is the most
dynamic aspect of developed societies.
But European universities are notori-
ously conservative and suspicious of
anything new or changing.
Back to the Future
The three disequilibria point to three
open questions regarding academic
education in communication in Europe:
the status of communication education
within the academic system, the pur-
pose of academic education in com-
munication, and the methods of
academic communication education.
What
My reading of communication edu-
cations past and present standing
within academia is that its problems are
based on its lack of substance: re-
search. Communication as a scientic
eld and an academic endeavour has
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so far been dominated by the concepts
and methods of other social disciplines
(and even of electrical engineering!). It
has never succeeded in legitimising it-
self in the family of social sciences as
an independent discipline that has
something to offer to other disciplines.
This lack of theoretical identity has of-
ten been supplanted by escape into the
territory of professions by observance
and teaching of their skillse.g. for
advertising, corporate communication,
journalism, marketing communications.
This road seems to be ending for two
reasons: the borders between these
so-called professions are blurring and
beyond the doors of academia adver-
tising agencies are turning into total
communication companies, news me-
dia are more about entertainment than
information, and indeed it is hard to tell
what used to be publishing houses (like
Pearsons or Bartesmann) are now
about. And what is the use of learning
skills for four or more years at a time
when you have to change your per-
sonal computer at least every two
years? Also the distinction between
(communication) hardware (the me-
dium) and software (the message) is
more blurred from day to day. At the
same time as communication as a
worldly practice is moving center stage
in the theatre of life, communication as
an academic discipline sits in the pit
and wonders what is going on.
The opposition of the established Eu-
ropean universities to admitting com-
munication studies under their roofs as
a reputable academic discipline is a
symptom of a disease that students by
themselves cannot cure. The funds that
students (can) bring will establish some
new centers of teaching, but they can-
not assure the necessary research and
the needed quality. This is dependent
on the present community of communi-
cation scholars: rst to admit where
they are and then to move somewhere
else.
Why
Silicon Valley developed by Stanford
University, and all other universities
around the world would like to copy
that. But not in social sciences. Com-
munication education, at least in Eu-
rope, is trying to stay pure, not in
contrast only to applied, but in contrast
to dirty (meaning: contaminated with
earthly interests and desires). Unless
communication research and education
become worldly ambitious they will be-
come obsolete.
But if academia will not be able to
produce and exchange knowledge on
communication that will be practically
relevant, businesses will enter the eld
of research and educationand, in-
deed, by establishing their own
universities some of them already
have. Because of the need for com-
munication knowledge and education
for business (and social) development,
we will see academic walls falling.
Communication education will be
tested for its use in the world. If stu-
dents want to capitalise on their edu-
cation, universities will be forced to
start producing capitalisable knowledge
in communicationor students will
leave.
How
Physicians and practically all techni-
cians need to read what scientists are
doing at universities to survive in what-
ever they are doing. But practically all
successful advertisers, journalists, pub-
lic relations and communication practi-
tioners in general whom I know live
excellently without ever knowing what
academia has to offer themexcept for
the degrees they may or may even not
have taken. This should tell us a lot
about what we have to offer.
Communication education needs to
become a laboratory in which TMT is
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played with. Communication education
needs to be an outgrowth of communi-
cation research and this needs to be-
come experimental and substantiated
in co-production of the future of our
eld of interest. That means that more
money will be needed to build TMT
laboratories in which students should
play with their professors to master the
new communication of the new econ-
omy.
The speed with which our eld is
changing is also redening what can be
done in the course of regular aca-
demic study (within four, six or eight
years). A whole new conceptualisation
of formal education is needed that will
preserve the university as a valuable
center of knowledge, its generation,
storage and exchange. How and why
should students stay in touch with their
universities after they receive their de-
grees will become the most important
issue that will differentiate between
successful and unsuccessful universi-
ties.
Epilogue
The European university is as an insti-
tution older than the present European
states and nations. So far it has proven
durable; but this is no guarantee for the
future. However, I am prepared to bet
that it is capable of integrating the new
world of communication into its curric-
ula and developing new forms of learn-
ing and teaching which will preserve its
place in the world of knowledge and its
capitalisation. But I am not prepared to
bet that the carrier of this TMT revol-
ution within academia will be communi-
cation studies. It may well be that the
center stage will again be taken from
outsideas it has been in the past
(one of the major communication mod-
els in communication was build by a
mathematicianShannon). The future
has already started, but I dont see us,
communication scholars, leading it.
Journalism Education in India
KAVITA KARAN
Osmania University, India
The training and skills imparted by In-
dian journalism schools are gaining
popularity and, despite criticisms about
being theoretically based and lacking a
professional approach, there is exten-
sive demand for a degree, diploma or a
certicate in communication and jour-
nalism. Teachers and media practi-
tioners believe that both education and
qualication are essential in the pre-
sent media environment. Indian jour-
nalism is reaching global levels in
terms of reporting, investigative analy-
sis, and information technology. The
changing media environment and the
expansion of technological infrastruc-
ture have contributed to the demand for
trained professionals.
The demand has led to the develop-
ment of various styles of journalism
education, by universities that have be-
gun to offer courses at both graduate
and undergraduate levels. Large media
conglomerates have established their
own in-house training schools to meet
their organisational needs, and private
enterprises are beginning to provide
intensive and comprehensive training
in specialised elds of print and broad-
cast media. This essay reects on the
opinions of teachers from journalism
schools and a section of media profes-
sionals on issues related to journalism
education, the relevance of formal
training for media jobs, the training they
received and their attitudes towards
journalism education.
India, the largest democracy in the
world, is unique in its structural plural-
ism, its media being dened to meet
the sociocultural and political needs of
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its diverse audiences. Its uniqueness
stems from this diversity. Mass media
are vital to the functioning of democ-
racy and safeguarding the rights of the
society. Unlike most developing coun-
tries, India has a vibrant media with
hundreds of English and indigenous
language newspapers, magazines and
television channels. The press is rela-
tively independent, free and pluralistic
reecting various shades of opinion,
alongside the fast-growing broadcast
media, mainly television. Television,
with satellite and cable channels, has
grown rapidly, penetrating even the ru-
ral areas. Radio, which reaches 97 per
cent of the population, still continues to
be the medium and source of news and
entertainment of poor and uneducated
people unable to afford or access tele-
vision.
The press in Indian history focused
on the freedom struggle and was a tool
for mobilising public opinion: leaders
with a vision of independence used the
press to spearhead and spread the
movement (Parthasarthy, 1989). The
post-independence press (since 1947)
has been sympathetic to the govern-
ment and has served as a watchdog of
political activity and the developing
economy. Only during the political
emergency of 197576, declared by
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, were civil
rights suspended and restrictions im-
posed on free speech and the press
(Viswanath and Karan, 2000). Though
the freedom of the press is not absol-
ute, citizens have faith in the press;
unlike the government. Though, the 60
per cent literacy rate limits newspaper
readership, there has been a consist-
ent rise in the readership and the num-
ber of newspapers. Over 39,000
newspapers are published in over 75
Indian languages and dialects. There is
a high level of efcacy in the regional
language press, catering to a large
section of the populace. Rural reporting
exceeds urban coverage and many
journalists feel that the present system
of journalism education needs to be
streamlined to increase coverage from
rural India.
The Relevance of Journalism
Education: media opportunities
The fast-changing media scene
with extensive geographic di-
versication, cross-media ownership
and specialised contenttechnological
developments and the move towards
freedom of information have all con-
tributed to the demand for media
personnel. Newspapers are diversify-
ing to multiple editions, with some
being published from as many as 20
cities. Competition among national
newspapers with multiple editions is
creating brand wars and the lowering of
prices, thereby creating new markets
for penetration and expansion. Private
and public broadcasting channels,
along with cable penetration and 24
hour broadcasting systems, have in-
creased. Major media conglomerates
have diversied into television pro-
gramme production for either their own
channels or both public and private
channels: Times Television (TTV),
(Eenadu TV) UTV, Plus Channel, etc.,
to name a few.
Aside from this, Indias telecommuni-
cation infrastructure is leading to con-
vergence and integration of
technologies. The new electronic me-
diainternet and online media, e-busi-
ness, e-journalism, e-marketing and
e-commercehave advanced and ex-
panded opportunities. The dot-com
revolution has created tremendous op-
portunities for communication person-
nel, especially those with specialised
qualications in technical elds and in
journalism.
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The Journalism Schools: public
and private enterprises
Though journalism as a subject was
rst introduced as early as the 1920s,
Aligarh University in north India intro-
duced a diploma course in journalism
around 193840. But the need for for-
mal training in the media arose when
some Indian scholars who had been
trained abroad worked to establish
journalism schools at a few Indian uni-
versities in the mid-1950s, offering
postgraduate diploma courses in jour-
nalism. These courses emphasised
print journalism, with some focus on
broadcasting. They survived with
mixed faculty drawn from other arts
and social sciences and support from
the staff of local newspapers. Then
communication was added to the cur-
riculum, including audiovisual com-
munication, lm as well as advertising,
development communication and pub-
lic relations. Today the scene is differ-
ent. Most Indian universities have
established journalism departments,
imparting general and specialised train-
ing, and one institution is moving to-
wards the status of a journalism
university. Over 50 universities have
postgraduate programmes and about
seven offer doctoral degrees. Further
opportunities are available by distance
education courses in open-university
curricula, designed to expand avenues
for media training, even for those al-
ready in the profession.
The demand from the regional media
has provided additional impetus to uni-
versities to offer courses based in the
regional media. Media conglomerates
have also set up their own training in-
stitutes (The Times of India (the
highest-circulation English daily in In-
dia), Malyala Manorama (the highest-
circulation Malyalam daily from Kerala)
and Eenadu School of Journalism
(Eenadu being the highest-circulation
Telugu daily from Andhra Pradesh)) to
suit their specic requirements. Given
the vast diversication and specialised
focus, several private schools offering
journalism and communication courses
in general and some with specic
courses in public relations, advertising,
marketing, etc. have begun in the last
ve years, but they charge fees of
more than 20 times the rates of their
university equivalents.
The Media Development Foundation,
a non-prot trust has set up an Asian
Media Institute, operating from Chen-
nai in south India. It is one of the pri-
vate enterprises committed to providing
excellence in journalism through edu-
cation, training and media-related re-
search for students to achieve world
class standards in journalism. The
training specically includes fostering
the core values of journalism as a seri-
ous independent, investigative, respon-
sible and ethical profession.
At state level with the focus on the
regional media, the emphasis is on the
training of reporters in rural areas and
smaller towns. The press academies at
state level have initiated programmes
to train rural correspondents and
stringers through series of lectures,
seminars, workshops, etc. in the re-
gional media. The success of such pro-
grammes is reected in the numbers
taking the courses and in the number
and quality of stories emanating from
such correspondents.
Though criticism levelled at schools
has focused on their undue emphasis
on theory, it might be argued that there
is a denite need for consideration of
theoretical concepts to allow students
to compare empirically, think analyti-
cally and predict rationally. A general
survey of the courses offered in six
Indian universities reveals that the syl-
labus is constantly being reviewed to
keep up with media requirements.
While universities are nancially con-
strained, the privately and industry sup-
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297 DEBATE
ported media schools are thriving with
well-dened strategies, good infrastruc-
ture and better facilities for practical
training.
Regional-language media training is
yet to gain momentum, but the popular
regional papers are running their own
training schools, with a curriculum de-
signed to suit their own papers, limiting
the otherwise broader spectrum of
communication and journalism. The
main problem, however, lies in the
need for more qualied and trained fac-
ulty, which would make a difference to
training opportunities. There is a need
to increasing the academic quality of
the teachers, change their mindsets
and build institutional collaborations.
Media Education and Media Needs
Few formal studies of journalism edu-
cation have been conducted since
Eapen and Thakurs (1989) research
which evaluated the relevance of me-
dia education and the media needs of
journalists with reference to their train-
ing within journalism schools. A decade
after media practitioners expressed
their opinions on the limited value of
the training received at journalism
schools, the need is for basic education
but also for subject specialisation and
technical expertise too.
Media professionals, notwithstanding
their years of professional experience,
believe that theory and practice are
prerequisites for good journalism.
Knowledge of media management and
ethics in particular enables them to ex-
ercise restraint and impartial judgment.
More importantly, the growing import-
ance of research, in-depth investigation
and quantitative number crunching, as
well as the methodological skills and
techniques acquired from journalism
schools is making the difference in pro-
ducing better-quality reporting and
coverage. Even experienced journalists
and people in advertising and public
relations acknowledge that learning by
trial and error is time consuming.
Learning so slowly means risking being
overtaken by their journalism-educated
counterparts.
The need now is to sensitise those
aspiring to be journalists to the real
socioeconomic and political issues fac-
ing India. Teachers feel that some jour-
nalists lack the understanding and job
skills necessary to conduct their pro-
fessional practice in a dignied and de-
cisive manner. Working journalists
exemplify the changing needs of the
industry, for which a degree or diploma
is a must at entry level. Instances of
people joining the profession because
they have a air for writing and news
sense are more exception than routine
these days. Most print and broadcast
media are looking for trained profes-
sionals who have followed a curriculum
that addresses the changing needs of
the industry.
As a profession, journalism has be-
come a specialised task requiring
specic skills, where it is alleged that
coverage must be in-depth and edu-
cation is out of its depth. Media activi-
ties are a combination of craft and
professional discipline; though either
can be learned outside educational in-
stitutions, the synergy of the two is
possible only through education at the
institutions. Producing technocratic edi-
tors and writers is not enough. The
need is to produce specialists in poli-
tics, sports, science and technology,
corporate and nancial journalism.
Consequently, journalism education is
currently a prime and prominent need if
effective, responsible researchers and
journalists are to be trained and nur-
tured.
Education to Address the
Main Issues
Given the industrys needs, practi-
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298 DEBATE
tioners and teachers feel that journal-
ism education must be streamlined.
Many of the schools have failed to
keep pace with the changing needs of
media. Schools are a little out of date,
trailing behind industry standards and
norms. Changes in course structures
and curricula are laboriously slow and
these courses risk in the words of one
professional becoming primitive.
There is, moreover, considerable
variation in quality, standards and infra-
structure, leading to a divide between
students graduating from universities
and from private institutions. University
courses tend to offer too many subjects
for students wishing to take up specic
areas of print or broadcast media or to
enter the elds of advertising, public
relations or publishing. The universitie
lean more towards the academic and
the assessment system does not en-
courage the learning of skills. Practical
training takes a back seat.
Another critical issue is that aca-
demics are not exposed to the real
world of journalism. The University
Grants Commission in 1984 recom-
mended the need to employ qualied
and experienced staff, along with the
need for fellowships for research and
publishing (Banerji, 1984), but progress
has been dismal. Universities have
failed to deliver the goods and, though
the private schools have a much
sharper focus on skills, they are not as
good and so the majority of journalists
working in the media have learnt on the
job. Critically, education involves in-
itiation in basic skills, which are of
course enhanced while on the job, just
as in any other profession.
The ideal would be to converge and
address these issues. A mix of the
private and the university courses may
bring about qualitative changes. Pro-
grammes at the university level need a
massive overhaul to cater to changing
needs and reforms. Moreover there is a
need to improve the academic quality
of the staff, provide training, and
encourage research and publication.
Journalism education needs to be
integrated with the media outside
the classroom. A concerted effort and
support from local media professionals
to interact with institutions and provide
training, through seminars, workshops,
assignments, projects, group discus-
sions, could bridge the critical gap
demonstrated by practitionerss
statements that what they learned
is different from what they are doing
now.
Are Journalism Schools Serving
the Country?
There are conicting views about how
well journalism schools are serving the
country. Media practitioners feel that
the demand for qualied staff is not
being fullled by the schools and many
are going abroad to receive education
and training in journalism. Moreover,
since schools are not providing ad-
equate training, people from other
elds are encroaching upon jobs in
journalism. For their part, the teachers
feel that the institutes are keeping up
with the developing systems, while ac-
knowledging there is always room for
improvement. But the need is to update
libraries and provide internet access.
Online journalism is what one needs to
think about and the technical infrastruc-
ture is an essential prerequisite for this.
The industry has become competitive
and a very high degree of professional-
ism has set in.
The future of journalism education in
the next decade in India will focus on
the use of emergent technologies, in-
ternet-related media enterprises and
the changed commercial environment
that might impact on the professional
prole of journalists. With the massive
popularity of internet newspapers,
there are going to be sweeping
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299 DEBATE
changes in the way journalism is prac-
tised and also in the way journalism is
taught. A journalist needs to possess
more technology savvy than ever be-
fore.
The convergence of media technolo-
gies will force us to re-evaluate and
restructure the way communication and
journalism are taught. More and more
practitioners will need to teach
alongside the academics. However,
the emphasis on writing skills will
remain unchanged. It will be necessary
to monitor closely the programmes
of government and universities,
since there is a strong likelihood of
the private institutions taking a lead
here. Given the rural landscape in In-
dia, there is a need to evolve new
methods to train rural correspondents
for creating greater awareness of rural
problems, to support development
projects, reduce the urban bias in re-
porting rural events and thereby con-
tribute to overall political, social and
economic progress.
As technologies are helping to shape
a global village, academics and profes-
sionals are suggesting the basic need
is to develop a wider network with other
universities within the country, the me-
dia organisations and other schools
worldwide to get up to date in areas of
research, technology and job
prospects. Autonomy for the faculty
would allow them to design the syl-
labuses for a better system of evalu-
ation and learning. Along with writing
skills, the need for speech and oral
skills for anchorage and overall person-
ality development programmes need to
be incorporated. An otherwise ne-
glected sectorsocial sciences, hu-
manities, technology and science
should be taught thoroughly to connect
the institution and masses in society. At
the industry level the need is constantly
to develop a mindset to cater to the
industry rst and later inuence it.
A mixed team of educators and
practitioners would lead to perform-
ance-based education. Becoming
a good journalist or a communicator
is what journalism education is all
about.
And nally, journalism is the sum to-
tal of all activities that serve as the
mediators between the producers and
the users of information and knowl-
edge. It is a proactive role in shaping
public opinion and policy development
and changes. It is the business of
knowledge and information processing,
the ability to understand present-day
circumstances, draw out majority opin-
ions and present them to the public in
an objective and interesting manner.
Journalism is the most powerful tool of
mass education; the more responsibly
one handles it, the better for society. In
marketing terms, it is the collection,
packaging and delivering of news that
is meaningful to consumers with depth
of knowledge and objectivity. The
status of the fourth estate still holds
well.
References
Banerji, A. K. (1984) Report of the All India Advance-Level Workshop for Journalism Teachers, Benares:
Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, Benares Hindu University.
Eapen, K. E. and Thakur, B. S. (1989) Journalism/Communication Alumni: their assessment of professional
education, UGC Report Bangalore: St Pauls Press.
Parthasarthy, R. (1989) Journalism in India: from the earliest times to the present day, New Delhi. Sterling.
Viswanath, K. and Karan, K. (2000) India, in: Shelton Gunaratne (Ed.), Handbook of the Media in Asia, New
Delhi: Sage.
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