Introduction

Many opinions, little data on the practice of online journalism

Despite entering its second decade of existence, the field of online journalism is still a new one in many respects. Little research exists into the media industry's pursuit of online journalism or how its various forms are affecting the people who consume them.

The lack of data is compounded by the speed at which the industry is changing. Studies of the industry conducted three or even four years ago have aged as mainstream media evolve to offer broader coverage in more formats. Surveys of effects on users are limited in scope too as consumers become more technologically accomplished and adopt high-speed Internet in greater numbers.

Research into the field of online journalism education is particularly rare. Research concerning education in North America is almost non-existent.

So what journalistic forms should educators be teaching? Many workplace editors who once demanded mainly research and copyediting skills for the task of posting static text and image content now need workers who do that, as well as select video clips and manage reader feedback.

What skills should they be imparting to their students as they seek to find jobs? In the mid 1990s journalism school graduates found their degree, coupled with a basic knowledge of HyperText Markup Language, opened many doors to the young industry. Now, most news organizations use content management systems to standardize the presentation of online content and ease the technical burden on content editors. At the user level, self-publishing, or blogging, software is now only slightly more complicated than word processing software.

Indeed, students today are likely to find that many of the most engaging forms of online journalism are more than static text and pictures on a webpage.

The Online News Association honoured the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation with a 2004 Online Journalism Award in the service journalism category for a story that empowered Canadians to query a database of adverse drug reaction data with the names of drugs in their medicine cabinets. The association granted an award to the New York Times in 2005 for its series on class in America that included an interactive Flash-based animation to help readers apply definitions of class to their own circumstances. Awards to even small news outlets in 2005 acknowledged excellence in multimedia storytelling. The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, Calif. won a breaking news award that year for coverage of a murder case that used audio of a 911 call, video of an important news conference and a photo slide show to explain the police investigation of a crime scene.

But multimedia storytelling is only one aspect of the changing news environment.

The Toronto Star has a crew of reporters engaging readers with personal voices in more than 10 different weblogs on its site. The Globe and Mail involves its audience in online chats with reporters about their stories. In addition, both the Globe and Canada.com have rebranded themselves in the past year to frame news delivery as part of an ongoing conversation with audiences.

What task does this set out for online journalism educators? Unfortunately there is little research to offer suggestions.

Educators face multiple challenges, such as teaching core journalistic practices while at the same time training students in evolving technology. As Mindy McAdams, an online journalism professor at the University of Florida, summarizes:

The opinions run the gamut from 'Just tell the students to read the Help files; don't teach software explicitly' to 'Teach them to do all the tasks they might do in an online journalism job, including writing JavaScript and editing video.' [The] decision is made more difficult by working online journalists who say, 'Just teach them how to write and get the facts straight. We can teach them the software after we hire them' (McAdams, 2004, para. 10).

Many consider multimedia to be an important component of effective online news, but multimedia production requires a considerable skill set. This poses a significant challenge for students when instructors have limited instructional time, teaching assistants and technology -- a fact underlined in a 2001 study by a team involving Carleton University's Peter Johansen and Chris Dornan.

But the industry may not want students primed with the latest content production technologies. An unpublished study by C. Max Magee in the spring of 2006 found that online news managers are looking primarily for detail-oriented collaborators with well-honed skills in copyediting, not technical production.

Similarly, Ann Brill, a journalism professor at the University of Kansas, found in her 2001 study that working online journalists ranked reporting and story idea generation low on a list of key attributes for their jobs. Instead, the skills they ranked highest were news judgment, online research and engaging their audience.

The conclusions lead educators to wonder whether training students to be online reporters is even a worthy goal. Indeed, few working online journalists gather news specifically for this medium. Most are editors, combining and enhancing content from other media partners.

Robert Niles (2005), editor of the Online Journalism Review, argues blogging was one of the most useful exercises for aspiring online workers. He said educators should make it a key part of any online journalism curriculum.

Some advocates of participatory journalism -- loosely defined as involving audiences in the news gathering process -- see the online journalist evolving to become a mediator of information -- an expert who manages conversations with audiences, moderates discussion forums and builds participatory communities of news readers. Author and participatory journalism advocate Dan Gillmor (2003) argues: "If contemporary American journalism is a lecture, what it is evolving into is something that incorporates a conversation and seminar" (p. 79).

The range of opinions highlights the difficulty educators face as they try to draft an effective online journalism curriculum.

Larry Pryor, an assistant professor at California's Annenberg School of Communication, states that American online journalism educators attending a Poynter Institute seminar in 2005 expressed considerable frustration with their plight. They reported that administrators were resisting their changes to journalism curriculums and were dragging their feet in offering adequate facilities. "If the group had a common plea," Pryor (2006) states, "it could be this statement: 'I want to come back with an answer that works'" (para. 7).

As the institute's Howard Finberg (2005) remarked, "In a complaint frequently heard at Poynter seminars, some teachers feel ill-equipped to teach some of the digital skills needed by today's converged journalists" (para. 21).

In short, the field of online journalism education sorely needs more research -- especially the practical kind that benefits industry workers and educators.

This project attempts to provide some insight into the kinds of teaching conducted at Canadian journalism schools. It surveys educators as to the yardsticks they are using. It will attempt to synthesize their comments into a picture of the state of online journalism education in Canada.

As the news industry moves toward more interactive models of storytelling and audience appeal this study prompts online journalism educators to reflect on their teaching and how they are adapting to this changing environment. It asks them to identify issues they believe are important to journalism and news delivery in the digital age. It seeks to answer the research question:

What do Canadian online journalism educators teach, how are they teaching it and what learner outcomes are they hoping for?