Finding educational help on the Web
Internet resources offer great materials for use in the communications classroom
by Gary Clites
Originally published in the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund's Adviser Update, Fall 2002
Teaching journalism can be a lonely profession. Most schools have only one or two staff members in the field, and many communications teachers toil alone in their schools. State and national journalism organizations offer some support, affording opportunities for instructors to get together professionally and to share ideas through publications like this one. But most of us find ourselves working in isolation on a day-to-day basis, struggling to guide our students through the creation of student media while at the same time working to build programs and much of the curricula we teach.
The technological revolutions of the last decade can help. The Internet is a terrific tool for bringing teachers together on a daily basis. The Web also offers tremendous resources that can support not only publications, but also help build meaningful lesson plans and activities for use in the journalism classroom. The tough part is finding the time to search them out. Following is the first in what I hope will be many articles covering under-utilized Internet-based resources perfect for easy application to the communications classroom.
Struggling to teach ethics to teenagers who barely grasp the concept of professional responsibility? Access Journalism Ethics Cases Online (www.journalism.indiana.edu/ethics/index.html), an amazing site created by Barry Bingham, Jr. and the School of Journalism at Indiana University: Bloomington, “for teachers, researchers, professional journalists and consumers of news.” It contains nearly 200 case studies based on real newsroom events documenting virtually every ethical and legal issue imaginable. And while these units are in the form of articles, they are well written and as interesting in their way as a good episode of Law and Order.
Organized in broad categories like “Sensitive News Topics”; “Handling Sources”; “Controversial Photos”; and “Invading Privacy” (to name only a few), the pieces can be used as the center of a journalism ethics or law unit, or to help students understand issues as they inevitably emerge in both the beginning journalism classroom and the student newsroom. Don’t worry about the ethical issue of copyright infringement, however, as the site grants permission to copy or download all materials for classroom use. Ethics Cases Online is one of the most powerful classroom resources you’ll find on the Web.
The Pew Center for Civic Journalism, supported by the Pew Charitable Trust, works for reportage to, “re-engage people in public life.” Their website (www.pewcenter.org) offers solid content to help teachers develop those same skills in students. As of press time, the site was offering numerous videotapes and publications free to journalists and educators. Among them, copies of winning entries from the organization’s annual Batten Awards in support of civic journalism which make terrific exemplars for classroom use (both television and print winners are available).
One great resource for any teacher of an introductory journalism course is the organization’s Journalist’s ToolBox (sic.), available for the modest fee of $15 to cover shipping. The set includes four 13-minute videos on the basics: Interviewing; framing a story; finding sources; and tapping community members as sources. Over 20 terrific publications are also available free, though there are indications that the organization is considering charging for some materials in the future. In addition, the site includes insightful articles with links that could serve as sources for terrific units in more advanced journalism courses.
Newslab is an organization which calls itself “a resource for television newsrooms, focused on research and training.” Their website (www.newslab.org) is a great place to stay up to date on news and issues in the field. It offers terrific articles and research which could easily serve as keys to building lesson plans in any communications class. Further, Newslab offers free videotape-based units which work as well in the classroom as in the newsrooms for which they were intended. Among materials on offer as of press time were three such packages: Before and After: Strategies for Better Storytelling; What it Takes: Cultivating Quality in Local TV News; and The Other Side of the Newscast, a 30-minute tape which takes students behind the scenes of a news broadcast at an NBC-affiliate station.
In addition to video content, the site’s “Resources” section offers a large number of materials designed to help news operations develop and improve strong journalism skills. The section includes extensive articles on news coverage, newsroom organizational systems, building teamwork, guaranteeing journalistic accuracy, and building on the experiences of professional journalists.
Newslab is built to support the professional press, but has always been willing to offer any resources to teachers. And while the site focuses on television, reporting is reporting, and most of the organization’s material should be applicable to anyone’s classroom.
Another site which focuses extensively on the world of television is the excellent TV Rundown (www.tvrundown.com), a publication, now online, which has been covering issues in local television news for over 20 years. A fairly simple site containing little more than articles from the print newsletter, it is the quality and nature of those articles which will make Rundown valuable for teachers. Each issue of the online version focuses on a topic in television news, at press time it was local and national coverage of hurricanes, with four or five major articles on the subject. These range from analysis and discussions of issues in the news to case studies of coverage by particular stations, a particularly valuable resource for teachers struggling to help students understand how news organizations operate.
The site’s database containing over 7,000 articles from the publication is only available to subscribers with a password. Therefore, the best strategy is to visit Rundown regularly to take advantage of the excellent content which is available free online. Have a contact at a local television news station? Consider asking whether they subscribe to the weekly print Rundown and whether they might be willing to pass issues along after they’ve been read.
© Gary Clites, 2002
