Journalism schools producing generation of drones

• Source: Global Times
• [22:29 October 25 2010]

By Li Xiguang

I teach journalism at prestigious Tsinghua University, where I've found that students who aren't specializing in the subject are among my best students.

I started a special course for them in 2007, inspired by my experiences at the Saltzberg Academy of Global Media Literacy, and hoping to help produce a generation of informed journalists.

But why is most good journalism coming out of students who didn't take journalism as a major?

Good journalism is about informed journalists doing informed reporting to meet the needs of an informed public. An informed reporter does not have to be an insider, but somebody with a sensible and unbiased understanding of the subject he is covering.

A good reporter must also have the courage to report the truth as it is, not the truth his audience wants. Bad and uninformed journalism is based on reporters' assertions, biases, rumors, gossips and public sentiments.

The most marketable journalism today is all about rumors. The most readable stories hardly hold up to scrutiny.

"I believe 95 percent of what the press says, save for the 5 percent I know," a UK journalism professor told a recent workshop at Tsinghua University when he talked about his experiences with the news media.

I heard exactly the same kind of remark from a sociology professor, "I trust journalists for their stories about others, but not the story about me."

What is wrong with the press? Why does the public no longer trust journalists to provide reliable and authoritative information? Is the press a bridge or a barrier between the truth and the public? Who is to blame for this widespread public distrust of the press?

As a journalism educator, I look at the deteriorating reputation of the press and journalists from the perspective of the journalism curriculum.

Journalism schools in China are far from being incubators for innovative ideas but function purely as factories for the mass production of tons of research papers on communication theories every year.

In the Saltzburg Academy, students learn that journalism means access more than memory.

But in Chinese journalism schools, the students are forced to memorize jargons and quotes from communications theorists.

Top students are selected for their memorization skills instead of their independent, innovative and in-depth writing and reporting.

One popular saying goes, "If you do not know what to teach, teach journalism; if you do not know what to study, study journalism. If you cannot find a job, be a reporter for a living."

Colleagues from other departments of Tsinghua often ask me just what the purpose of journalism education is.

Journalism education in China is not only becoming irrelevant to the real world but is betraying the core values of journalism itself.

The public is still turning to journalists for news stories that are vital to understanding a complicated world, but the schools are incapable of preparing their students to report about a world that is beyond their understanding. Students are taught how to get attention, but not how to be accurate.

It doesn't even pay off professionally. The recruitment rate of journalism students at the end of their course is among the lowest of any subject.

My aim is to extend the traditional core skills of journalism to students from other fields. I want them to use their specialized knowledge to compose clear, insightful, and authoritative news stories using the art of storytelling.

Because most journalism students aren't trained in the humanities or sciences, they are not prepared to report the complicated reality to meet the demand of an informed public. When breaking events occur, they do not know where to seek informed and authoritative sources.

They do not know the difference between assertion and verification, between inference and evidence, between pseudoscience and science.

Journalism students must learn how to be informed reporters. They must learn which sources to turn to and trust, and which media and sources not to turn to and trust.

Otherwise, how can they expect people to trust them?