Mary Alice Basconi

My first steps—and missteps—as a reporter were on my mind the first year I taught a beginning reporting class. I wrote checklists aimed at closing the fact-finding gaps. I talked about the painful day my city editor made me spell out, in detail, how I produced an inaccurate news story. I recalled how my newspaper appeased an angry source by running a correction on Page 1. I preached the fundamentals: Choose a worthy topic, let sources know you’re a reporter, be accurate, write with clarity, follow Associated Press style, revise and proofread.

Michael A. Longinow

Journalism education in the first decade of the 21st century has taken hits from all sides and remains—as has been true for generations—an underfunded, underpaid, oft-misunderstood endeavor. Yet it stands as a catalyst for innovation in American journalism, shaping women and men into change-agents for tomorrow’s media. This essay will suggest that the pedagogical and administrative courage necessary when journalism education was established in the United States will continue to be needed as educators find ways of sending successful graduates into media industries that are shrinking, shifting, and shaking with tremors of profound change.

Carrie M. Buchanan

Establishing an online presence is essential for anyone hoping for a career in journalism today. Increasingly, journalists in all media are expected to write for websites, maintain their own blogs, and use social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to promote their work, interact with readers, and find new sources. A key question for journalism educators, however, is when to start the process of establishing those online skills. This paper examines what can be done in an introductory journalism course at a liberal arts college, where journalism is not necessarily the career students have in mind. It suggests techniques for encouraging students, but not compelling them, to start using LinkedIn, Twitter, and blogs after completing the course. It examines student reactions to a series of classes offering tips and resources, held near the end of the first semester of introductory journalism. It concludes that this is a useful and professional way of launching students into professional online writing by allowing them to go at their own pace.