WHAT'S NEXT: INNOVATIONS IN NEWSPAPERS

Professor Jay Rosen says that Journalism Schools are increasingly becoming R&D labs.

First, I am not sure about that. Second, If yes, I say no.

I don’t have any problem with universities and professors doing research.

More than that: without research, teaching and education are very poor.

But the idea that our Journalism Schools have to become R&D Labs is wrong.

The best Journalism education still is a strong Liberal Arts curriculum.

Reading, Thinking & Writing, are more important than playing and doing.

You will spend the rest of your life playing and doing.

So you better spend your College years using your brain, not your hands.

For many years Journalism Schools were focused on just print media.

Then, broadcasting programs came.

Later, public relations & advertising… and integrated marketing communications!

Yes, I know, mutimedia is here and now our old fashioned Journalism Schools want to catch the future just becoming R&D Labs…

What all these professors don’t know is that the problem are them, not the students.

The new generations of students are “digital multi-media-tasking natives” so they don’t need more technical training because they are fully trained before they enter in the schools.

These professors and administrators eager to get funds for R&D Labs are the ones needed of this training.

What good students are looking for is for challenging thinkers, first class teachers, inspiring personalities, and not IT amateurs.

Let’s be serious:

You still learn more about new narratives reading Antigone than spending hours in front a computer.

Specially now when you can read Antigone in an iPad!

Sad words from the late Norman Mailer:

“Newsrooms these days all sound like you’re in a monastery.

All the computers are so silent.

I miss the old days.

Lots of journalism writing is bad because the pressure of being a good writer is not the first talent you need to be a good journalist.

The first talent you need is the emotional readiness to introduce yourself to strangers and pick their brains.”

And he didn’t know that now in many newsrooms journalists don’t even speak to each other, they e-mail instead!

You will not change newspapers if you don’t change newsrooms.

You will not improve newspapers if you don’t change the workflow.

You will not have better newspapers if you don’t have better newsrooms.