College journalism programs, students’ newspapers fall behind advancing industry

Some see need for a drastic change in curriculum, addition of new media elements throughout coursework

By: Jessica Torrez-Riley

The Mass Media, University of Massachusetts-Boston’s student newspaper, began publishing an online version in 2001. Yet when Michael Hogan began his collegiate career three years ago, the focus of his classes and the newspaper was still all about print. 

“It’s actually only been the last few semesters that we have even talked a lot more about Web-exclusive content,” said Hogan, now the paper’s editor-in-chief. “As long as I’ve been here it’s been print, print, print.”

While the news industry continues to evolve and change its perspective on new media and online publishing, many college journalism students and professors say the shift to a “Web 2.0” way of thinking is lagging behind on college campuses.

A 2007 study by the Center for Innovation in College Media found that, although more than 90 percent of college newspapers are published online, most Web sites “had still not adopted ‘Web 2.0’ features that took advantage of multimedia storytelling and community engagement.” These features include podcasts, blogs, streaming/embedding video and audio, and allowing for comments and discussion boards. 

In the study, which surveyed hundreds of college media advisers, more than half “responded that student media tends to be lagging behind the advances in commercial media.”

Steve Yelvington, who has worked in online publication since 1994 and is now a principal strategist at Morris DigitalWorks, the new media division for more than 60 daily, non-daily and free community newspapers, attributes part of the slow progression of college newspapers to the success of the print versions.

“Print is across the board doing better on college campuses than it is in the [rest of the industry],” Yelvington said. “When I look around at a lot of college papers, who are perpetuating a print model online, the general approach to publishing online is very similar to what we saw happening maybe five, eight, 10 years ago” in the professional industry.

The Center for Innovation in College Media has created an interactive map to link to successful examples of college newspapers publishing progressive Web sites.

Hogan agreed with Yelvington’s observations in regards to The Mass Media, a weekly publication with a circulation of about 4,000.

“Before our webmaster’s job was basically to cut and paste stories and paste them on the Internet and that was it,” he said. “The online version was basically a mirror of our print version.”

The atmosphere is a lot different at the Daily Free Press, the students’ newspaper of Boston University, where former photo editor Will Nunnally said he is confident of the paper’s progress into new media.



“What we were doing at the Freep and what we were learning at the Freep is similar to what they are doing in the industry. [We] find we’re learning along with our professors almost,” said

Nunnally, a senior photojournalism major, who ran the Free Press’ multimedia Web site, fStopJournal, last semester. “We may not be on the same technical level [as professional newspapers' Web sites]. We don’t have the budget for products like news video, but we were running multimedia on fStop before the Globe was on Boston.com.”

Photo Credit/Jessica Torrez-Riley
Kristyn Ulanday, photo editor of Boston University’s Daily Free Press, takes photographs at the Matthews Arena.

As photo editor, Nunnally said the Web site published about 15 audio slideshows and photo galleries during his tenure. Although the content of the Journal wasn’t always “hard-hitting journalism,” “people seemed to really latch on to” the two-minute pieces, he said.

“I think it’s a good way to integrate the two worlds and keep it so that things are accessible and so people are seeing your work, because the print version can only go so far,” said Kristyn Ulanday, who is the current photo editor for fStopJournal.

Despite the Free Press’s success, Ulanday and Nunnally said they learned most of their new media skills from their experience at the paper and not in the classroom.

Ulanday, a junior photojournalism major, is now taking her first photography class at Boston University. She said she has learned most of what she now knows from students, like Nunnally, who came before her.

Watch this video of the interview with Ulanday.

Nunnally agreed multimedia is something that he has talked about in classes, but nothing compares to the experience he has gained working on the daily newspaper environment of the Free Press.

“I always said that ... half of my education has been in class and the other half has been at the Daily Free Press. I would not know as much about multimedia as I do.”

Mark Plenke, a communications instructor at Normandale Community College in Minnesota and the adviser for its student newspaper, said he encourages students to be the driving force behind pushing their college newspapers into the multimedia revolution.

“First thing I would say is go down to your student newspaper and be an evangelist for new media ... use the student newspaper for what it is really meant to be,” he said. “I don’t think it’s possible for students who only go to classes and don’t get involved to really come out [of school] and be ready to go to work.”

Plenke said he is seeing gradual movement in the direction of Web-oriented journalism despite some student resistance to learning the new skills.

“I think there is a growing realization among journalism colleges, especially college student journalists that new media is something that they want to have for the audience and need to have for audience,” Plenke said. “It’s clear that things are moving in that direction, but I still think some of the [professional] daily papers and news Web sites are ahead of colleges and it probably should be the other way around.”

Plenke said he thinks journalism programs are facing the real problem in trying to figure out how to catch up with the fast-paced industry.

“Journalism faculty needs to sit down and see how we are going to teach new media … whether we change courses, add courses … but like a lot of other bureaucracies, colleges journalism programs move quite slowly,” he said. “There is currently a universal discussion, but I don’t think everyone is up to speed ... there is going to be a lot of hand wringing the next few years.”

Andy Bechtel, assistant professor of journalism and mass communication at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, said his classes are in a transitional mode, and he has been trying to incorporate online elements into his editing course’s “print-centric tradition.”

“There are already multimedia classes where students learn Flash, how to make slideshows, but we can’t just have a couple of classes. [new media components] have to be throughout the curriculum,” Bechtel said.

Like Plenke, Bechtel said he sees a call for a large-scale curriculum change in the next few years, where every class would have some kind of online element.

But what does this mean for journalism students who find themselves stuck in this transitional gap?

“From what I can tell it sort of depends on what level of job you’re willing to take,” Hogan said. “If you are looking to get out of school and become a regular reporter who’s going to write regular stories every week, without new media, it may be tougher to do.”

Bechtel said his biggest advice to students about to complete programs that have primarily focused on print journalism “is go into any first job or internship situation with a willingness to learn.”

Newspapers are learning as they go, Bechtel said, and most newsrooms are up to teaching students new media skills as long as the students are open to learning.

“Be more flexible,” he said. “Be ready for changes and ready to embrace them and not be afraid of them.”