AEJMC Newspaper & Online News Division The academic-professional "chasm"

Sun Jun 24 16:46:28 CDT 2012

If it is mission-sensitive, relevant and accessible, journalists and journalism professors will read it. Ted and Dane's thoughts were both mission-sensitive and relevant and should be widely read. Most of what journalism professors write about the profession of journalism is neither mission-sensitive nor relevant. That has been a constant for the three-plus decades I have been paying attention. Gerald Stone created Newspaper Research Journal to provide practical research, but most of his initiative has been lost over the years. I say keep trying to bridge the gap, but in today's environment where the once mighty Newhouse organization is going out of the daily newspaper business and into the tri-weekly advertising distribution business, I would not hold out much hope of a breakthrough. Nonethess, I and we should keep trying.
-- John K. Hartman, professor of journalism, Central Michigan University
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Dr. Dane S. Claussen 
  To: Edward C. Pease ; news-list at aejmc.net 
  Sent: Saturday, June 23, 2012 7:10 PM
  Subject: Re: AEJMC Newspaper & Online News Division The academic-professional "chasm"

  Plenty to respond to in Ceppos's essay, both pro and con, but for the moment I'll say only that readership of J&MC scholarly journals is a two-way street.  Journals could publish more practical research and be more readable for people who don't have Ph.D.s, but professional journalists aren't exactly clamoring for professional development, whatever they might claim in surveys.  Only 10% of U.S. journalists bother to belong to SPJ; fewer than that read AJR or CJR; only 10-15% of U.S. journalists read the paper or electronic version of The New York Times; obviously a very low percentage read books of journalism criticism/recommendations by people such as Fuller, Fallows, Kovach/Rosenstiel, Rosen, etc.; most beat reporters seem only semi-serious, not really serious, about developing expertise on their beat (with sports being the exception that proves the rule, and the rule is quite painful when to comes to, say, business/economics reporting). Good luck in getting U.S. journalists to read Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly regardless of how fine the writing is, how practical the research is, or how low the subscription price is.

  As for JMC academics not reading scholarly research, there certainly is a high percentage of them who don't want to and/or don't need to do research (they already have tenure, or they teach at an institution where research is not necessary to get tenure, or they are on a non-research tenure track, or not on tenure track). I've seen professors retire from research universities, and how that process physically goes can tell you a lot, especially a visible layer of dust on journals sitting in an open box in the hallway.

  Dane S. Claussen, Ph.D., M.B.A.
  Editor (3/2006-9/2012), Journalism & Mass Communication Educator,
  Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC);
  and
  Head (2011-12), Media Management & Economics Division, AEJMC

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  From: ted.pease at usu.edu
  To: News-list at aejmc.net
  Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2012 14:32:54 +0000
  Subject: AEJMC Newspaper & Online News Division The academic-professional "chasm"

  All: Jerry Ceppos (re)opened this can of worms. 
  Opinion: The same old song about journalism’s academic-professional disconnect
  June 21st, 2012 Posted in Opinion | Edit | By Ted Pease
  Jerry Ceppos, the new dean of the Manship School of Mass Communication at LSU and a former newspaper editor, writes somewhat grimly this week about “How Journalism Professionals and Educators Can Close the Chasm.”
  His column took me back to my first journalism educators (AEJMC) convention—in 1984 at the University of Florida. As a brand-new assistant professor, newly migrated from the newsroom, that first encounter with journalism/mass communication education was an epiphany. I remember distinctly hearing a research panel presentation that included Guido Stempel and Max McCombs, two of the biggest names in journalism research. I had never heard of them. “Wow!” I thought. “This is great stuff. I wonder if anyone in the newsroom knows about this.”

  More at http://hardnewscafe.usu.edu/?p=8031

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 
  Edward C. Pease, Ph.D
  Professor & Department Head
  Book Review Editor, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly
  Department of Journalism & Communication
  Utah State University
  Logan, Utah 84322-4605
  435-797-3293; 435-797-3973 FAX
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