A line from a longer blog post by San Jose State University journalism student Suzanne Yada:
Don’t teach social media tools, teach concepts behind them. Don’t teach Twitter, teach why Twitter.
I like that. Thanks, Suzanne.
NB: Suzanne’s post summarizes a panel discussion that included CUNY J-School Prof. Sandeep Junnarkar.
Hat tip to Trace Sharp at NewsTechZilla for flagging this post:
Journalists find things out and tell people about it.
If you are teaching your students how to do that, you are not only doing your job, you are giving them the gift of a lifetime.
It is not your job to guarantee them stable employment.
I’m not even sure that stable employment is good for young journalists.
Journalists exercise power. Ideally, they exercise that power on behalf of the powerless. If they know nothing about what it is like to be powerless themselves, they may come to exercise their considerable power on behalf of the already powerful.
Teach them how to find out what is true and what is hidden, and how to say it so others can understand what it means and why it is important. Then you will have done your job and given them the gift of a lifetime.
