Our navigators in the sea of information
The more confusing the media messages we get, the more we rely on educated journalists to sift through the noise and give us the context we need.
We live in uncertain times. Many of our beliefs, habits and social institutions, once deemed secure, are crumbling. The outlook is disheartening and makes us anxious.
Never before have we needed quality journalism to help us navigate these turbulent times.
Journalism helps us make sense of our life in society and actively participate through democracy. As the French political scientist Alfred Sauvy once said, “Well-informed men are citizens; poorly informed, they become subjects.” But our information systems seem to be collapsing and journalism seems to be failing us.
I speak from the experience of having worked for more than 20 years in newsrooms of various media outlets, always in the field of news and current affairs. In recent years, I have been teaching journalism and communication at several universities in France.
It is in that context that I say that journalism education needs to keep pace with the transformation of our information ecosystem.
Journalism needs an upgrade.
Here are some things I think need to happen.
First, given the importance communication holds in today’s society, more and better journalists are needed. That’s the opposite of what has been happening so far.
More media outlets are closing, local news coverage is shrinking and investigative articles are on the decline.
It’s time to meet the demand for journalism that is close to the people, constructive and of high quality.
We need to create more journalism schools, both public and private, establish more cooperative news outlets or even better, merge many of the existing ones into new, better and more influential organizations.
Change up how things work.
Second, the content of journalism education needs to be reformed. This profession has become a technical job, where understanding new technologies for producing and transmitting information is deemed more important than creating quality, eloquent and convincing content. While my educational experience is limited in both time and geographic scope, I have been alarmed by the lack of general knowledge and culture among many journalism students.
They are unaware of what has happened in the world over the last 50 years, so they don’t understand current events and their potential consequences. We must return to basics, ensuring journalists have an excellent general culture that allows them to make the most of their work.
Third, and related to acquiring a broad general culture, new journalists must be much better at prioritizing and categorizing news.
They need to be out on the streets, taking the pulse of people’s reality, talking to them, empathizing with them and experiencing the world as the majority of people do. This is how one truly understands what is important and what people prioritize.
Reconnect the public to the press.
The detachment between journalists and the public is one of the reasons for the decline in newspaper readership.
Unfortunately, this is not taught in journalism schools, yet it is essential. Most journalists spend their days in front of screens whether in newsrooms or remotely in their homes. They rely on secondary sources of information that are often produced by organizations with interests different from those of the general public.
A fourth area for improvement is the permanent implementation of critical thinking throughout journalistic processes. In many daily news articles essential information — the traditional five Ws (who, what, when, where and why) — are missing. Most important, the stories often lack context.
Journalists should ask themselves why they report on a given topic, who provides the information, what hidden interests might be involved and what value this information holds for the public.
It is true that journalists alone cannot change the current media landscape. But in their role as the central actors in the system, they can do much to improve the quality of information and support citizens.
A well-rounded “classical” education, coupled with a curious and critical mind, should produce good journalists. These “new professionals” would be better equipped to face the current economic model of information, which favors powerful entities controlling information, the overwhelming information saturation, the prevailing negativity and cynicism and the constant distractions in the form of screens that affect our lives.
If concerned citizens also make an effort to support and reward this new form of quality journalism, we will all benefit. And our societies will gain a stronger democratic and peaceful coexistence. This is why it is worth valuing and improving journalism education.
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