AEJMC Members Forum

From the CCJIG post of 8 December 2008:

I am happy to report that the Civic & Citizen Journalism Interest Group was able accommodate nearly all of the panels proposed for Boston, thanks to vice-chair Mary Beth Callie’s diligence. (more…)

Sponsored by the Elected Committee on Teaching

Diversity is vital to journalism and communication. The AEJMC Elected Committee on Teaching is looking for Best Practices in the Teaching of Diversity. The competition theme has relevance across the repertoire of our field.

Diversity may relate to:

• Multiculturalism, racial, gender, sexual, cultural, and ethnic heterogeneity.
• Perspectives, theories and concepts that address differences in race, class, history, society, ability, gender and sexual orientation, age, religion, language and socio-economic status.
• Complexity of people, perspectives and beliefs in communities or global societies.
• Representation of ideas, people and perspectives from groups historically underrepresented and other related issues in media, communication and other fields.
• Other diversity issues.

(more…)

Congratulations to Dr. Jody Mattern of Minnesota State University-Moorhead for winning the 2008 GIFT grand prize. Dr. John Jenks (Dominican University) of the Small Programs Interest Group and Dr. Beverly Bailey (Tulsa Community College), president of the Community College Journalism Association, present Mattern (center) with a plaque and $100 check on behalf of the GIFT program co-sponsoring divisions.

(more…)

Poynter – Today on PJnet, Leonard Witt poses a provocative question, which was sparked by a panel at the recent Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) convention:

“Here, I believe, is the ultimate ethical question: If the American public does not want to pay for journalism — in other words, doesn’t find value in what we as journalists do — should we simply stop doing it?”

It’s an intriguing question, but I think it contains a few fallacies.

First, it seems to me that the “American public” has never wanted to pay for journalism — not very much, anyway. Advertisers have always been the ones who cover the bills for the vast majority of news orgs. Subscriptions and cover prices paid by readers have always comprised just a small fraction of the revenue required most news orgs. (Hence the recent proliferation of free newspapers and magazines.) The exceptions to this have been public broadcasting, and the occasional journalistic work that emerges in long-form media (books or film/video).

Second… Full Story

Source: Diverse Education

The incoming president of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (AEJMC) says that she plans to use her post to rally for increased diversity within the 96-year-old nonprofit organization. AEJMC is composed of journalism and mass communications faculty, administrators, students and media professionals from around the world.

Dr. Barbara B. Hines, a professor and director of the graduate program in mass communication and media studies at Howard University, is the 14^th woman to serve as president of AEJMC. While progress has been made, she says to diversify the organization much more needs to be done.

“It wasn’t until the 1970s that women and then minorities started to become members of the academy and at that time there was really a recognition, in the early 1970s that we needed to be more diverse both in gender and ethnicity,” says Hines, who has taught at Howard University since 1984.

In response to the lack of diversity, AEJMC, under the leadership of Dr. Lionel C. Barrow, who is now professor emeritus of communications at Howard University, established an Ad Hoc Committee on Minority Education, which was designed to recruit, train and place minorities at universities across the country. Today, the Minorities and Communication Division is still active, but challenges remain. AEJMC is currently undergoing a strategic plan and is brainstorming ways to attract more minorities to the organization…

Full Story

Alfred Hermida is live-blogging some of the AEJMC sessions at www.reportr.net.

Institute for Interactive Journalism Joins AU’s School of Communication 

Contacts: Maggie Barrett, AU Media Relations, barrett@american.edu or 202-885-5951

Marc Fest, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, fest@knightfoundation.org or 305-908-2677 

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Aug. 6, 2008)—J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism has moved to American University’s School of Communicationwhere it will expand its operations with the help of a $2.4 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to American University.  

J-Lab helps journalists and citizens use digital technologies to develop new ways of participating in public life. J-Lab provides award and seed money to professional journalists, citizens, and new media entrepreneurs for innovations in journalism and community news startups; builds e-learning Web sites for interactive and citizen journalism; and engages in training and research.  

“I am excited that we have the opportunity to expand our programs in a place as full of energy and focus on innovation as AU’s School of Communication,” said Jan Schaffer, J-Lab’s executive director and one of the nation’s leading journalism reform thinkers.  “Our new affiliation is a good fit for J-Lab’s mission, which is to help transform journalism for today and reinvent it for tomorrow.” 

At its new home, J-Lab will use the Knight grant to: 

• Renew the Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism.
• Fund 16 additional New Voices citizen-media projects.
• Create eight to 10 Knight Citizen News Network learning modules and update J-Learning, J-Lab, and J-New Voices Web sites.
• Launch five Networked Community News pilot projects, teaming five newspapers with citizen media outlets in each of their communities.
• Build a Community Media Toolkit to help foundations fund, vet, support, and measure local media projects.
• Ramp up knowledge sharing with a Re-imagining Journalism project. 

J-Lab’s J-Learning and the Knight Citizen News Network are Web-based, comprehensive community journalism instruction programs; its McCormick New Media Women Entrepreneurs project provides seed funding and support for original news ideas proposed by women; and the New Voices project provides start-up funding and instruction for pioneering community news ventures in the United States. The Knight-Batten Awards recognize innovations in journalism and are one of the profession’s most prestigious honors. 

Schaffer, a former business editor and Pulitzer Prize winner for The Philadelphia Inquirer, launched J-Lab in 2002 at the University of Maryland, College Park. The move became official in June. (more…)