Views on Journalism course options

toffeeman

Hey People,

I'm starting my Masters in Journalism shortly and would like to get some feedback and opinions from people who have completed Journalism courses at third level education.

Its in NUI Galway and we have to pick two from three of the following elective subjects - Financial Journalism, Public Relations and Photo Journalism. I'm currently planning to drop the PR module as the other two sound the most interesting and should provide practical skills and tools which will be useful no matter what field of journalism you work in. Has anyone done a PR module in a Journalism course and found it particularly useful or enlightening?

If anyone has any advice on what subjects they found the most compelling and valuable once graduated and working or ones that they feel should or can be avoided, I would appreciate hearing their experiences.

Thanks

santosubito

Good luck with the course. I've heard it's good.

The only thing I would say is try to concentrate on the elements of the course that are the most practical.

For example, if possible try to do more shorthand lessons, or law, rather than things like the theory or ethics of journalism.

Get into the mindframe of being a reporter, not a student hournalist.

santosubito

Now that I'm on a roll, you may want to think about this while you're doing you're course.

Here is what I've noticed that young reporters, just out of college, simply don't know:

How to double check what they have been told for accuracy;

How to be balanced:

Impartiality;

Even the basic laws of libel (they seem to think that if you don't name somebody, you're safe. Big mistake.)

How to interview people;

How to do a doorstep;

Shorthand;

What you can say during a trial and what you can't;

What you can say about somebody before they appear in court but after they have been charged.

You may want to make sure you can do all these things by the time you graduate.

I blame the lecturers, myself.

Snickers Man

santosubito wrote:

Here is what I've noticed that young reporters, just out of college, simply don't know:
How to double check what they have been told for accuracy;
How to be balanced:
Impartiality;
Even the basic laws of libel (they seem to think that if you don't name somebody, you're safe. Big mistake.)
How to interview people;
How to do a doorstep;
Shorthand;
What you can say during a trial and what you can't;
What you can say about somebody before they appear in court but after they have been charged.

Hmm. So what DO they learn on these courses then?


I used to be a journalist. I never had to do court reporting or doorstep people in the street. (no harm learning about this if you are likely to be doing that sort of thing though)

The one thing I would urge you to learn is shorthand. It's incredibly useful. I left the trade before I learned it but it's my one regret that during my time I never bothered to take it on.

While I was on my training course (some years back) one of the lecturers suggested we learn shorthand. Bright young things that we were we pooh poohed him and said 'No No. No. Tape recorders. That's the way to go. Much easier. Get with the technology of the future, man'

Bolllox. He said. You will spend far more time in the long run transcribing tape recordings than you will learning shorthand. In the end, you just stop bothering and make do with your longhand scrawl. Which is often not enough.

With proficient shorthand you can glance through an entire interview looking for the best quote, or where the interviewee mentioned some particularly apposite point. With tape, unless you're extremely organised and jot down the exact point on the tape counter (and even that'sa pain making sure everything is set up from the start) you spend ages flicking back and forth to get to the right spot.

He was dead right. Something to think about.

santosubito

Snickers Man wrote:

Hmm. So what DO they learn on these courses then?

I think they learn how to be a journalist, rather than an reporter. I also think they learn how to write opinion peces a la Sindo

But you're right about the shorthand.

It's funny, I did my course in Glasgow, also many moons ago, and the columnist Neal Acherson from the Indy at the time gave us all a talk. he also said shorthand wasn't necessary. But I don't think he ever had to cover a court or a council.

I'm talking about learning the nuts and bolts of being a reporter. Some people want to be columnists, and fair play to them. But for the others, they need to learn the basics and I think, unfortunately, many Irish courses don't cover those basics. I was just talking to a gradutae from one of these courses the other day, not Galway, by the way, which does see to have a good reputation. He told me that they didn't even have one news day throughout the whole year. Incredible. The truth is most people who come out of these courses won't end up writing think pieces for the Sindo, or Village. They'll be jobbing hacks like the rest of us.

toffeeman

santosubito wrote:

Here is what I've noticed that young reporters, just out of college, simply don't know:

How to double check what they have been told for accuracy;

How to be balanced:

Impartiality;

Even the basic laws of libel (they seem to think that if you don't name somebody, you're safe. Big mistake.)

How to interview people;

How to do a doorstep;

Shorthand;

What you can say during a trial and what you can't;

What you can say about somebody before they appear in court but after they have been charged.

You may want to make sure you can do all these things by the time you graduate.

I blame the lecturers, myself.

Thanks, santosubito. They would all be areas that I am looking improve upon or learn for the first time. I found it amazing that DCU had dropped their shorthand course in their Masters. It's one of skills I think will be most practical and useful for any aspiring journalist to learn and have at their disposal. I've worked 3 months in a radio station previously and fervently wished I knew freehand for note taking during interviews. As Snickers said, I usually just logged time of important quote or salient point when recording on MD but then had to review the whole disc to see what exactly was said.

I brought this up during my DCU interview and they were very dismissive of shorthand and the fact they don’t provide a course for it. They said it is something you should learn yourself if you have an interest in it but they said it wasn't practical to teach at a class level to postgraduates. I argued the exact opposite as I consider it highly important especially for those of us (the majority I imagine) who haven't done Journalism at an undergraduate level. They weren't to be swayed and it probably wasn't the place or time for arguing about it but it is strange how DIT and NUIG proudly proclaim they provide shorthand courses as examples of how their courses are geared as more practical than theoretical.

santosubito

I think you made the right decision. I wonder how many of these lecturers have actually been reporters. Muppets.

Snickers Man

toffeeman wrote:

I brought this up during my DCU interview and they were very dismissive of shorthand and the fact they don’t provide a course for it. They said it is something you should learn yourself if you have an interest in it but they said it wasn't practical to teach at a class level to postgraduates.

Up their own arses or what?

This is what happens when you make what should be a trade into a profession. You get a load of self-important **** who relegate the tools of the trade to something they consider to be beneath themselves.

If it's not appropriate to teach one of the basic tools of the trade as part of the curriculum then maybe a specialised university qualification (under or post grad) is not an appropriate way to train journalists.

Discuss.

And be warned, I'm saddling up a favourite hobby horse and preparing for a long long gallop.

jmcc

toffeeman wrote:

Its in NUI Galway and we have to pick two from three of the following elective subjects - Financial Journalism, Public Relations and Photo Journalism. I'm currently planning to drop the PR module as the other two sound the most interesting and should provide practical skills and tools which will be useful no matter what field of journalism you work in. Has anyone done a PR module in a Journalism course and found it particularly useful or enlightening?

As a cynical editor in the Walter Burns mode, I'd advise you to concentrate hard on the PR course. Most of the people who do these "journalism" courses end up in PR any way either through recycling press releases as journalism or as PR people. Then again I'm largely basing this on the people that I saw "writing" about technology in the Irish media during the recent unpleasantness of the dot.bomb era.

Learn to listen.
Learn to cultivate sources.
Develop an infallible bullsh1t detector. (The Hemmingway requirement for a journalist.)

Regards...jmcc

zenith

IMHO, the technology involved in photography will be most useful if you decide to get into the production end of journalism - composition, colour management are two items that spring to mind as being valuable skills in press and magazines - and suprisingly few journalists are *really* numerate (beware statistics) so financial journalism will also be useful. The biz isn't just about writing stories, you know.

I concur on shorthand: notes taken in it are far less likely to get you into trouble than rapid longhand scrawl.

HTH.

jrey1981

An interesting thread. I did a BA Journalism in the UK. We did shorthand but I was a bit of a lazy sod and it isnt really up to scratch...I still have the basics of it but they are not enough and I would struggle to read what I had written.

In the past I have used a tape recorder and transcribed. Now, I interview people and transcribe what they say on a laptop while they are talking. A little unusual I know and not practical if, say, you are doorstepping someone, but I am lucky that I can manage doing this at the moment as I am a volunteer writer with an NGO.

Unless you want to go into photography in a big way or use it with reportage writing in some way, I would do the financial journalism and PR.

Why? Financial journalism because it should focus in on a subject in which you will hopefully be able to write with some proficiency and inside knowledge.

PR because yes as someone else said, you may well end up having to take a PR job. But if you succeed in journalism, then when a PR rings you up or you get a press release, you will know a bit about their angle and should be able to see their point of view which in theory should help you write a more objective story rather than push their angle for them. Note approximately 75% of news is generated by PR or press releases...

Oh, and it struck me that you dont have much of a choice of electives?

santosubito

jrey1981 wrote:

Oh, and it struck me that you dont have much of a choice of electives?

That is a very good point. I delved into the NUI syllabus, but that was a few days ago, and I can't remember if there was a features module, or one on specialist news reporting,for example. They do seem slightly limited and, ever so slightly, impracticable.

toffeeman

http://www.nuigalway.ie/faculties_departments/journalism/courses.htm

The full list of subjects.

The core modules are Feature Writing, News Writing and Reporting, Broadcast Journalism and Sub Editing so I think the essential news gathering skills are covered in those subjects. These are coupled with more theoretical courses and practical skills classes in Gregg Shorthand and Quark Express. (BTW, can anyone recommend any books for a beginner learning Gregg?)

I am leaning towards opting for the PR course over Photojournalism now but reluctantly as both appeal to me. As said, there isn't much choice really but thanks for all the advice.

Snickers Man

jrey1981 wrote:

An interesting thread. I did a BA Journalism in the UK.

Do you mind me asking when was that? I worked as a journalist in the UK for nearly 10 years (some time ago now mind) and NEVER met anyone with a formal journalistic qualification.

I remain unconvinced that journalism per se is a valid subject for a degree course. There are some specific skills that one has to learn but not anything that would take three years of full time education to absorb.

I think too that one of the key things about journalism is to be knowledgeable about your subject, whether that is macro economics or the sport of your choice. Geoff Boycott, for example, is a superb cricketing commentator even to the likes. Did he ever do a degree in journalism? I doubt it. Did George Lee learn his grasp of economics at journalism school? Maybe, but I doubt it.

The subject matter, to my mind, is what a journalist should concentrate upon. So people would be far better off learning about something specific like finance, or science, or engineering or whatever. Journalism qualifications, to my way of thinking, should be a diploma or even a certificate for a month-long inhouse or block release course.

The advantage of those is you frequently get instructed by real practitioners with real experience whose advice can be invaluable.

With a degree course you get academics or former journalists who have been out of the game so long they turn into academics and start disappearing up their own arses with high-falutin ideals about the value of their profession that sadly have little or no relevance to the real world.

jmcc

Snickers Man wrote:

Do you mind me asking when was that? I worked as a journalist in the UK for nearly 10 years (some time ago now mind) and NEVER met anyone with a formal journalistic qualification.

In the tech journalism there are two types of journalist - those who know what they are writing about (typically they have a tech background) and those who are clueless (they typically have a journalism "degree" or are one of these parasites of the business - the "technology journalist".)

I think too that one of the key things about journalism is to be knowledgeable about your subject,

Most of the people writing about technology are not knowledgable about the subject. Look at the number of people who claim to be "technology journalists" who merely recycle press releases as news.

The subject matter, to my mind, is what a journalist should concentrate upon. So people would be far better off learning about something specific like finance, or science, or engineering or whatever.

A far better solution. Speaking purely from the tech journalism angle, it is easier to train techies to write well than it is to train a technologically ignorant arts student to write effectively about technology. Unfortunately most of the people in the Irish tech media are former arts students with poor to non-existent technological expertise. As a result, the Irish tech press is full of rubbish and cluelessness masquerading as tech journalism.

Journalism qualifications, to my way of thinking, should be a diploma or even a certificate for a month-long inhouse or block release course.

Many journalism quals are year long masters courses.

With a degree course you get academics or former journalists who have been out of the game so long they turn into academics and start disappearing up their own arses with high-falutin ideals about the value of their profession that sadly have little or no relevance to the real world.

There are some good academics with a lot of experience in journalism. But then again there are some academics who have watched "All The President's Men" one too many times.

Having a good editor to learn from is worth more than any degree course.

Regards...jmcc

santosubito

Snickers Man wrote:

Do you mind me asking when was that? I worked as a journalist in the UK for nearly 10 years (some time ago now mind) and NEVER met anyone with a formal journalistic qualification.

I remain unconvinced that journalism per se is a valid subject for a degree course. There are some specific skills that one has to learn but not anything that would take three years of full time education to absorb.

I think too that one of the key things about journalism is to be knowledgeable about your subject, whether that is macro economics or the sport of your choice. Geoff Boycott, for example, is a superb cricketing commentator even to the likes. Did he ever do a degree in journalism? I doubt it. Did George Lee learn his grasp of economics at journalism school? Maybe, but I doubt it.

George Lee, I seem to recall, was an economics lecturer before moving over, so that backs up what you say. I tend to agree with you. I did my degree in Italian and French before doing a postgraduate dilpoma in Glasgow. For me, a year's course was long enough. I wonder what is the use of a three or four year course. I think it is safe to say that reporters and journalists will learn far more in a newspaper or other media outlet than in a lecture theatre. I would fear that a BA course would, by necessity, be too theoritcal - they have to fill three years with something.
Also, I think reporters are becoming increasingly specialised. The BBC, for example, are big into specialits correspondents with an in depth knowledge of theiur subject. So maybe it is a good idea to do something like economics or politics, or whatever. Strangely enough, I've never used by knowledge of the multilplicity of personality in the plays of Luigi Pirandello in any of my reporting, but I use my languages a lot. I am a correspondent, but have noi qualification in my field, althoug I have been doing it for six years now, so In suppose you doi build up a certain level of expertise.

lara

I've a degree in journalism. And I also come under what jmcc refers to as a "parasite" of the business.

I think that teaching some stuff in the classroom -- i.e. subediting -- is a waste of time. I learned far more in two weeks on the subs desk in a newspaper than I did in a year's worth of classes.

But I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the degree, depending on the college it's taught at of course. Mine included a lot of practical work, including producing newspapers, radio shows etc. Most of the students were working for national publications and radio stations by their third year in college.

The problem now is that many of the courses are trying to make it more academic, talking about ditching the practical elements -- which is going to do no good in the future. All it will do is turn out a lot of highly "educated" journalists who can't string a sentence together or stick to a deadline.

jmcc

lara wrote:

I've a degree in journalism. And I also come under what jmcc refers to as a "parasite" of the business.

It is a generalisation Lara,
As with any part of the media, there are good and bad technology journalists. It is just that in Ireland, it seems that the good technology journalists are scarce because the Irish tech media is such a small market. The good Irish technology journalists end up writing for UK publications or for US publications or just get into technology and give up journalism out of sheer frustration.

A lot, if not most, technology journalists have no background in technology or indepth understanding of technology or the business of technology. As a result they frequently end up recycling press releases or writing inane product reviews. Eventually they migrate to the PR business.

Good journalism is meant to enlighten the reader. And when some of these people try to "explain" technology they make an even worse mess. Just look at the history of the Irish Times' technology reporting and its highlights such as running a pro-Spam article describing how to go about spamming. Technology journalism had traditionally been a specialist form of journalism but the dot.bomb bubble dragged in a pile of "technology" journalists with no background in technology. The consequence was that the reporting got so dumbed down that it was potentially useless to the reader. Often, these "technology" journalists got things so badly wrong that they were misleading the reader. And the worst part was that they did not care enough about journalism to bother to get things right.

The problem now is that many of the courses are trying to make it more academic, talking about ditching the practical elements -- which is going to do no good in the future. All it will do is turn out a lot of highly "educated" journalists who can't string a sentence together or stick to a deadline.

As with most jobs, there is a lot of knowledge that can only be acquired by practice. Did any of these academics ever do any significant journalism? Things like developing and cultivating sources is something that can only be learned on the job.

A lot of good journalism is based on instincts. A degree course might hone these instincts or develop them but a journalist without that inbuilt need to discover and explain will just be another PR junkie waiting for the next press release. But a degree is only as good as its lecturers and journalists tend to learn more from other journalists and good editors than they will ever learn in college.

Regards...jmcc