Today’s journalism students are more serious than you think

John Morano (Photo credit: Mark Ludak)

Like their parents and grandparents, students today are focused, distracted, eager, afraid, involved, withdrawn, reckless, careful… They are students. But there are some differences that I’m seeing in journalism students in areas that previous classes might’ve given less attention to.”

John Morano

When someone becomes aware that I’m a journalism professor, I often hear, “Oh, students today — they’re not like they were when I went to school.”

Many of these people haven’t had a meaningful encounter with an actual college student since they were in school, and they fail to realize that they are speaking to someone who encounters today’s students daily.

There are differences, but generally, students today are not so different from their parents (whom I might have also had in class).

Like their parents and grandparents, students today are focused, distracted, eager, afraid, involved, withdrawn, reckless, careful… They are students.

But there are some differences that I’m seeing in journalism students in areas that previous classes might’ve given less attention to. Today, there is a deeper concern with truth, what it is and how to share it; how something might be true for one group but perhaps not another. They eagerly consider that there can be truths — rather than the truth — and vice versa.

Students want to know how to judge reliable sources of information and reliable conveyors of information, both in journalism and beyond.

I spend much more time today having deep discussions about what the First Amendment is: What it’s there to accomplish, its relationship to the Fourth Estate, and what, if any, obligations come along with that.

For the first time in my career, I began virtually every class last semester with “The First Amendment issue of the week.” It seemed irresponsible not to.

In my Newswriting class, our textbook is “All the President’s Men.” (I mentioned this to Bob Woodard. He was enthralled with the idea.) Some people who think they know journalism students today would assume that these young people would have little interest in the story of The Washington Post confronting the corruption of the Nixon administration and that these students would barely be able to remove their eyes and thumbs from their cell phones; that assumption would be wrong. The journalism students I see today are as interested in Woodward and Bernstein’s story as any I have seen. In some senses, they are more interested in this story than ever before.

We're having meaningful discussions about whether to print quotes from people who are lying or biased information and how to do that responsibly.

Credibility is a topic of concern. Who is credible, and what makes them so? What is balance? What is bias? To what degree should a journalist step beyond merely informing? Should they actually judge? Is there a role for Advocacy Journalism? Opinionated Reporting? Today, we especially grapple with the role of a journalist.

Of course, these topics have been discussed in newsrooms and classrooms for as long as journalism has existed. But right now, there is a hunger to understand these pillars of the Fourth Estate.

We’re paying close attention to codes of ethics. Back in Newswriting, we do a deep dive into The Washington Post Code of Ethics and the Sigma Delta Chi code.

One can certainly speculate about the reasons for this renewed interest in responsible reporting, and we do not hesitate to go there, but as journalists, not partisans.

It is both refreshing and troubling, at this point in my career, to see this generation so focused on these topics, genuinely fascinated with the power and privilege to inform, but also fearful of what lies ahead if these holiest of journalism’s obligations become corrupted and the credibility of the Fourth Estate ceases to exist. At that point, we might be left with a government and industry scrutinizing itself.

The future of the Fourth Estate is being decided, in large measure, by what’s happening in universities nationwide. If you're wondering whether today’s students are up to the task, I believe they are based on what I’ve seen.

The bigger question is, will enough people be open to hearing what these future journalists have to report?

John Morano founded the journalism program at Monmouth University, where he is professor of Journalism and the author of “The Morano Eco-Adventure Book” series. You can see more about his work at JohnMorano.com.