# Journalism school: Has it changed since Trump? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 19, 2019, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/journalism-school-has-it-changed-since-trump/832784 "2019-04-19T18:45:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2019, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/journalism-school-has-it-changed-since-trump/832784/1 "2019-04-19T18:45:59Z")
More of a GQ question than IMHO, but I figure a mod will move it to IMHO soon anyway: Are journalism students in universities now learning things differently in the Trump Era than what they might have been taught in journalism class 20 or 40 years ago? (i.e., is it still the same standards/ethos about things like keeping opinion separate from facts, bias/unbias, responding to readers claiming that something was reported inaccurately, trying to reach “the other side” for comment before running an article, etc.) Not trying to make this a pro-Trump or anti-Trump thread - just want to ask if the teaching of journalism has changed at all because of Trump. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2019, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/journalism-school-has-it-changed-since-trump/832784/2 "2019-04-19T18:58:07Z")
Dunno about J-school specifically, but in academia in general, it takes a while to change a curriculum. You have to submit courses to administration and get them approved, and that can have a year or so lag time. [Here](https://journalism.columbia.edu/classes), for instance, is a current listing of classes at Columbia University’s School of Journalism. Most of the descriptions look like standard courses that have been on the books for a while, such as Reporting, Reporting in Conflict Zones, Business and Financial News, Computational Journalism, etc. Edit: Not to say that specific examples and assignments used in such courses might not have a fair bit to do with the current administration, just that I’m not seeing any evidence there of a massive post-Trump rethinking of the fundamentals of the discipline. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2019, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/journalism-school-has-it-changed-since-trump/832784/3 "2019-04-19T19:40:00Z")
OK thanks, but…not so much necessarily change in _curriculum_, but maybe change in tone or style or ethos. Is there now more of a teaching that, “Opposing the bad side is more important than being impartial/objective?” ---
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2019, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/journalism-school-has-it-changed-since-trump/832784/4 "2019-04-19T19:52:11Z")
Are you imagining a scenario where the prof pauses in the middle of a lecture on journalistic integrity and gives a big ole wink to the lecture hall? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2019, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/journalism-school-has-it-changed-since-trump/832784/5 "2019-04-19T22:23:43Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Is there now more of a teaching that, “Opposing the bad side is more important than being impartial/objective?” Well, that is certainly an attitude we see in some overtly partisan media such as [Fox News](http://www.flowjournal.org/2006/05/fox-news-and-the-redefinition-of-objectivity-in-us-news-media/?print=print), but I don’t think they’re learning it in journalism school: > [@](#): > > I would argue that media critics must focus attention on the ways in which Fox News has re-defined the traditional notions of “objectivity” by recasting the ethical principles and the philosophical underpinnings of American journalism in more populist terms that resonate with political conservatives and evangelical Christians in the United States. […] > > When Fox News arrived in 1996, it brought with it the theories and practices of “faith-based” journalism which were often incongruent with many of the philosophical ideals and ethical principles of “objectivity” in American news media. When confronted with ethical dilemmas on political issues of race, class, gender and philosophical concepts like freedom, truth, and social justice, many journalists on Fox News have placed their faith in “conservative” principles of American politics (which were deemed to be congruent with the evangelical Christian worldview of the television viewers that Fox News cleverly targeted by catering to their perceived sense of marginalization in the mainstream). Within mainstream journalism, though, there seems to be a renewed sense of the importance of journalistic ethics, according to [this summary of journalism trends at the end of 2017](http://mediashift.org/2017/12/edshift-trends-2017-educators-focus-whats-next-journalism/): > [@](#): > > The most prevalent trends in journalism education for 2017 are far from monolithic. > > Social media’s uses and limitations. Digital media’s prominence in student newsrooms and J-School curricula. News literacy, or “fake news,” that warrants transparency and strengthened ethics. Innovation in technology but also mindset. Data analytics for increased visibility and audience engagement. More recently, [here’s a set of predictions for 2019](http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/publications/2019/journalism-media-technology-trends-predictions-2019/) from a research associate from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism: > [@](#): > > This will be the year when the regulation of platform companies starts to bite following growing concern about misinformation, privacy, and market power. […] > > Meanwhile the spread of false, misleading and extreme content will continue to undermine democracies around the world with polarising elections in India, Indonesia and Europe likely flashpoints. Journalism will continue to be hollowed out by structural shifts that have already led to significant falls in advertising revenue. Publishers are looking to subscriptions to make up the difference but the limits of this are likely to become apparent in 2019. […] > > Key Trends and Predictions for 2019 […] > > Misinformation is no longer about completely false news, but rather a constant drip, drip, drip of ‘misleading content designed to deepen divisions in society’. […] > > Fact-checking and debunking may need to be supplemented by a greater understanding of how stories are spread and by whom. First Draft research shows that misleading content is often discussed first in the anonymous web (4chan and Discord), then co-ordinated in closed or semi-closed networks (WhatsApp or Facebook groups), is then socialised in conspiracy communities (Reddit forums, YouTube channels), before being seeded in a co-ordinated way in public networks like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Broadcast media and newspapers can then often make the problem worse by picking up and amplifying these claims. > > What Might Happen in 2019 > > Deep fakes: With sophisticated video manipulation technology now openly available many fear a new wave of misinformation. […] Deep fakes have also been widely used to insert celebrities into pornography and to add the actor Nicolas Cage into movie scenes. Expect a proliferation of deep fakes in 2019 including the first attempts to deploy these powerful technologies to literally put words into the mouths of political opponents. […] > > Digital and social media has incentivised poor quality, repetitive and shallow journalism – so say the critics. But how might this change if readers set the agenda rather than advertisers? Could less journalism be better for society and create more impact? > > These are some of the questions that have inspired the ‘slow news’ movement which we’ll be hearing much more about in 2019. […] > > Conclusions > > This will be a critical year for both publishers and platforms in terms of rebuilding trust and credibility after years of self-inflicted wounds around quality, privacy, and user experience. A number of fundamentals are beginning to shift and these will be much clearer by the end of 2019. > > The labelling and prioritising of trusted content is well underway in third party networks, supported by emerging standards around ethics and fact-checking that can help to distinguish reputable news from rumour and spin. So it seems that journalism as a discipline is primarily focusing on business models, technology possibilities, and increasing transparency and reliability in reporting, not on deprioritizing journalistic ethics to supposedly promote a particular “side”. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2019, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/journalism-school-has-it-changed-since-trump/832784/6 "2019-04-20T01:07:47Z")
I graduated from The Best Damn Journalism School In The World\*, the University of Missouri, and I’ve seen a number of graduates who went on to Fox News. That style of news is not what they were taught at Mizzou. What I think will happen is that more emphasis will be given to teaching journalists that the he said/she said, statement/response style of “balanced reporting” doesn’t work when one side is flat-out making shit up, and that those people don’t deserve balance. Of course, that will require more independent fact-checking, and if there’s one thing people hate, it’s facts they don’t agree with. \*Okay, “best” may be open to argument, but it is factually the first degree-granting journalism program.