Asia Pacific Media Educator
Abstract
Dominating the discourse among journalism educators in the early ‘90s was how the internet would ‘revolutionise’ journalism practices, how newspapers would see its end days with readers turning to online news sites, and thus, the need to revamp traditional journalism curriculum and focus on ‘new media technologies’. Today, however, the smell and feel of newsprint is as pervasive as it was in 1991 during the days of the Netscape beta and HTML markups. Which reminds me of a remark by John C. Merrill, professor emeritus at the Missouri School of Journalism, at the AEJMC panel discussion I attended in Boston on August 8, 2009. With more than 60 years of writing about journalism, and teaching it, he said: “Twitter, new media etc – are they over-rated? So what? Journalism educators need to be mindful of the values that come with good journalism - investigate, public service, build communities, values, story-telling. What we hear today is change, change, change (in relation to new media). Maybe what we have now (traditional media) is good enough, just focus on making it better.”
Recommended Citation
Loo, Eric, Editorial: Back to basics in journalism education amid the techno hype, Asia Pacific Media Educator, 20, 2010, 1-8.Available at:https://ro.uow.edu.au/apme/vol1/iss20/1
