Vocational or wise-the choice for student journalists

I am torn by the comments of Nick Davies which have been reported by Press Gazette today.

The author of Flat Earth News has caused a stir in his comments at City University

there is a danger with the courses: there are now hundreds of them which claim to teach these skills, but a great many of them are genuine crap, taught by people who haven't the faintest idea of how to do the job."

and

dismissed suggestions made recently by Eastern Daily Press deputy editor Paul Durrant that vocational training was more important than a degree for aspiring journalists.

Coming to the end of three years of a journalism degree,I have certainly been taught the vocational skills required for a journalism degree.

Being a mature student I have an advantage in coming into the university with world wise skills and deep knowledge of certain subjects.I do not have to reach for google every time that I want to write about something.

Where the system fails and this is not necessarily the fault of the university is that a lot of students don't come with that knowledge.I would put that down to a general failing of the education system which is geared to results and not to acquiring knowledge.

From the point of view of potential employers,surely they would prefer new journalists to come equipped with the vocational skills rather than have to invest in teaching those themselves.

However they would also want to see that potential applicants have a knowledge of the topics that they are going to be writing about.

A balance is required?

More on THAT book

Nick Davies' book has created quite a stir amongst journalists.

Mary Riddle's review in the Observer on Sunday,whilst agreeing with many of Nick's sentiments

Much of Davies's analysis is fair, meticulously researched and fascinating, if gloomy

takes issues with some of his attacks on the Observer and on the Mail

Davies is wrong, however, to suggest that the Mail's investigation of Stephen Lawrence's murder, a campaign of courage and commitment, was purely based on the rumour that Stephen's father had once done some work on Dacre's house

Moreover his assertion that Roger Alton lifted chunks of Alistair Campbell's memos to form the basis of the paper's pro war editorials has irked Riddle greatly


Stephen Glover in the Indy yesterday suggests that

Whatever we may think of the journalist Nick Davies, we should take his new book seriously.

And further tells us

Unsurprisingly, plans to run excerpts of Flat Earth News in The Guardian have been abandoned. The Guardian Media Group is behaving as though it would like the controversy to go away

Adrian Monck takes issue with the research that forms the basis of the book whereby

your average Fleet Street reporter now is filling three times as much space as he or she was 20 years ago. Turn that round, look at it from the reporter’s point of view: we only have one third of the time to do our job.

Yet Adrian suggests that this does not take account of technological improvements,freelance workers and the like.Her writes this on the issue of journalists reliance on PR.

The real filler in newspapers (and online) is wire copy. This is presented as something of a shock and Nick conflates this misleadingly with PR material (at least he does on the Today programme). Actually the only shock is that newspapers have hidden their reliance on the agencies for so long.

You can see the full report from Cardiff University HERE

http://www.mediawise.org.uk/files/uploaded/Quality%20and%20Independence%20of%20British%20Journalism.pdf

Extracts from Flat Earth News

I am looking forward to reading Nick Davies' new book Flat Earth News,having heard the man himself give a sneak preview of his book in November of last year.An extract appears in this weeks' New Statesman


This takes a fresh look at the much critised Daily Mail including this blog,Nick says that

A lot of people misunderstand the Mail. They see it as a right-wing rag driven by an addiction to the Conservative Party and to the defence of the rich and powerful. That is not where the drive comes from at all