Book launches and free hard copies were part of a WJEC panel held at the annual congress of the International Association for Communications and Media Research (IAMCR), held in France in early July.
This was in the context of a lively panel discussion titled “Teaching journalism today”, convened at the start of the IAMCR congress in Lyon.
WJEC commissioned the two handbooks for journalism educators, which are now also available online, with support from UNESCO’s International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC).
A third book, backed by WJEC, was also launched during the IAMCR event. Written by WJEC Vice Chair Nico Drok and Rolien Douven, it presents the findings of survey of 1696 journalism teachers from 46 countries. An online version will become available.
Responding to the book, Dr Beate Josephi compared the survey results to those of the Worlds of Journalism survey which gathers views from journalists. Prof Trevor Cullen spoke about the experiences of journalism educators engaging with editors, and encouraged participation at the next congress of the WJEC in Perth, Australia, 2025.
The session then turned to the two UNESCO-linked handbooks. These were contextualised by Emeritus Professor Guy Berger, now retired from UNESCO where he led the organization’s liaison with WJEC over 11 years. He signalled recent online resources for journalism educators, such as guides for teaching students about covering migration, terrorism, and violence against women and girls.
“UNESCO was also able to publish 30 translations of the handbook for j-teachers on Journalism, Fake News and Disinformation, thanks to voluntary efforts by IAMCR members”, he said. The two new handbooks being launched at IAMCR had so far attracted support for kiSwahili and Arabic versions¸according to Berger. He encouraged journalism educators around the world to arrange discussions on the two new books.
“Reporting Artificial Intelligence” is one of new publications then considered. Done by ten contributors and edited by Maarit Jaakkola of Gotenborg University in Sweden, it unpacks the dynamics around AI and highlights the challenges of doing justice to the stories involved.
Commenting on the book, was Prof Barbie Zelizer, founder of the Center for Media at Risk at the University of Pennsylvania.
She said she had “learned a lot from this report”. However, she urged scepticism in order to ensure that the topic of AI responded to journalists, their occupational standards and practices, rather than the other way around.
It is important, said Prof Zelizer, that coverage of AI does not exclude parts of newsmaking that “are not technologically driven – [such as] curiosity, drive, independence, intuition, the unexpected”. Neither should reporting on AI lead to prioritising “speed, patterning, formulaic and template-based writing, structured information, [and] routinized events”.
Introducing the second new handbook “Teaching journalism remotely”, was Prof Susan Keith of Rutgers University. She acknowledged the role of her co-editor Dr Raluca Cozma of Kansas State University who could not attend the session.
Prof Keith summarised that the resource had secured a variety of contributions by 19 authors from nine countries. She observed that journalism teachers are known for what they teach, not how they teach. This mean a lot of efforts were needed in order to track down who actually has top experience in online pedagogy, and around different parts of the world.
“Teaching online — at least teaching online well — takes more effort than teaching in person,” noted Prof Keith in reference to the book. “The content of a face-to-face class can’t merely be shovelled online with any expectation that the effort will be successful”.
She outlined how the resource, drawing on the experience of the pandemic, offered practical advice to journalism teachers. The topics include tips on planning and transitioning to online courses, how to deal with plagiarism in online education, and increasing diversity in virtual classrooms.
Responding to this publication Prof Viola Milton of the University of South Africa, a distance-learning institution. She said the handbook was timely and had a welcome balance between pedagogical considerations and course content considerations.
Noting a gap, she pointed out that “a chapter dealing with student experiences in diverse settings would be most useful (also for ensuring that our pedagogical assumptions meet student circumstances and needs).”
Prof Milton added further: “A key question that can be addressed in a follow-up volume: how do we meet students where they are at (intellectually, technologically, geographically, etc) without devaluing their education experience? Are students receiving a voice-note lecture and those in a video conference session for example getting the same experience and afforded the same opportunity to develop dialogue and critical skills? What are ‘their’ thoughts on this?”
The professor has agreed to lead a panel on the two handbooks at the upcoming conference of the South Africa Communications Association. Other events are planned in diverse gatherings with journalism educators elsewhere.
