Five Challenges Facing Journalism Education in the UK

Abstract

Journalism and journalism education has been through a time of massive change over the past 20 years as the media has got to grips with the technology revolution, learning how to deal with the benefits and problems that the move from analog to digital has brought. Now education needs to look to the future to predict what’s coming and to prepare teachers and students for even more change as the interface between humans and the digital world becomes ever closer. Journalism education also needs to take more seriously the need to not just train journalism students but to give them the tools to deal with a fast-moving world where things can change almost month by month.

Students can now expect a career of up to 60 years duration and learning how to predict the future, deal with the latest innovations, manage change and identify what is important and what is merely transitory; a glossy distraction rather than a change in basic truths will be key skills for success. Training simply for today’s world is no longer good enough and lets our students down – students need skills for a future that will be more different than any sci-fi artefact film can imagine.