Comments on: Newsroom-Classroom Panel at ONA: A Bridge to Nowhere?

By: John Cokley

John Cokley — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 04:20:39 +0000

No I think there’s a real distinction … because what I do now *is* quite different from what I finished doing for News Corp in 2002. Now as a journalism researcher/educator, I am paid to read, talk, think, research, experiment and pass on new knowledge. Working for News Corp, the focus was always on production of the next edition/bulletin/whatever, and reading-talking-thinking-researching-experimenting had to take place in spare time, while passing on new knowledge was problematic because field staff in journalism seem to innately distrust research staff. Pity … because research staff keep field staff afloat 99 percent of the time, in journalism as in all professions/industries. Let’s start a movement to promote the simple idea of Journalism R&D!

By: Ryan Thornburg

Ryan Thornburg — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 01:13:44 +0000

Amen, John. Good journalism can save lives. It can help readers prosper and can make people feel better about their choices in a democracy, I believe.

Do you think industry or academia is more cutting edge at this point? Or do you believe that — as some have suggested to me — that the distinction between the two is false?

By: John Cokley

John Cokley — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:58:37 +0000

There is a general misconception — evident in your posting — that research + academia in journalism is the boring end of the equation you seek to solve. No one thinks or says that R&D is boring in the space program, because astronauts make it crystal clear that R&D saves their lives every minute of every day they’re aloft. Neither do general medical practitioners say R&D in the health industry is boring, because it helps them cure patients every day.

Neither should journalist practitioners say that journalism R&D is boring: but *they do* … perhaps it’s because they’re closed to new ideas (there is evidence to support this) or because they don’t realise how much they depend on our work, or because the previous work of some journalism academics has steered away from cutting edge R&D. We need to keep up with the cutting edge if we’re to BE AT the cutting edge. We’re in the business of news … our R&D news should be the newsiest of all.