Busting J-School Silos

"Busting J-School Silos: What Will it Take?" by Amy Gahran brings up some important issues about the future of journalism. Journalism is changing, but are schools preparing students for the real world? In my opinion, news editorial courses at U of I do a great job at preparing students for a future in print journalism; however, the future for print is changing. More focus needs to be placed in multimedia, and a solution to this would be to collaborate with broadcast journalism students. I think required classes that combined writing along with video would be very useful. I know there is one multimedia class offered next semester, but it conflicts with the graphics class that is required (which is disappointing). In terms of other departments, I think ideally it would be a great to combine with other schools such as business and computer science, but I think it would be extremely difficult to get professors at other departments on board. They have their own curriculum to worry about, and until there was an absolute need for it, I doubt it will happen.

In regards to copy editing, I think there need to be more of a focus on copy editing in other journalism courses. I think in every reporting class there needs to be more of a collaboration between students to edit stories. For example, news rooms could be simulated in the class room where people cover different beats and edits occur before the stories are due. I think to overcome some of these obstacles, professors must take the initiative to change their own course work. I agree when Gahran says, "They're already way out of time to sit around considering: it's time to act." In addition, I think students need to be pushing for it as well. If enough students are asking for it, I think the journalism department will respond accordingly.