Teaching All Students How the Press Works

By: Nat Hentoff Getting It Right Column

I neither attended a j-school nor have taken any courses in journalism, a point I make to students majoring in other areas who want to become reporters. As cops say, I learned on the job.

But there is one course I wish I had taken, and would like to now. At Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) in New Haven, an all-university first-year course, which meets the school's requirement in communications, is listed as "Journalism 101 -- The Media: Freedom & Power." The course is open to all students and often oversubscribed -- more than 80% of journalism majors take it before beginning their three-year track in the subject. I have not seen anything like the challenging scope of this course anywhere, not only as a way to train people going into this business but also as a way to create regular, informed readers in other fields.

Department Chairman Jerry Dunklee developed the course -- and guided it through the inevitable bureaucratic maze in universities -- because, he said, "As a former talk-show host, I had noted, both on the air and when I did community speeches, that the average member of the public knew little about the Constitution or the role of the press in our form of government. The level of ignorance was substantial, and it began to gnaw at me."

Dunklee emphasized -- as the curriculum proves -- that "this course is not a frill or an academic fad. It provides basic knowledge of how an absolutely pivotal aspect of our form of government works. Without such knowledge, no one can be an effective, well-informed citizen."

Among the course requirements: "Read, besides assigned work, a daily newspaper every day. Watch local television news broadcasts. And be ready to talk about news events and the way various media portray them."

Recently, lecturing at academically demanding Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., I asked students how many of them read daily newspapers. A little more than 50% said they did. A disturbing percentage. And at some colleges, I'm told, the percentage is lower.

In the initial weeks, students in SCSU's version of "Journalism 101" learn the historic roots of the battles for press freedom, including the star chamber -- particularly illuminating now, in the age of U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft's closed hearings -- as well as citizens held without charges and without access to lawyers.

The exploration of the First Amendment ranges from the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 to pivotal court cases to "Hate speech on the Internet: Do the same rules apply with a medium that can reach millions as they do to a pamphlet [or a newspaper] with more limited reach?"

In a section on "Society and the Press," the course focuses on "the public anger at the press; the insensitivity issue; the media circus; disaster coverage; and other instances seen as poor taste." Also: "What perceptions of class, race, gender, religion, and ethnicity are created or fostered by the news media?" Later, attention is paid to "undercover reporting. Can journalists lie to get the truth?" The course goes on to a common concern of E&P readers: "Corporate ownership and mergers. How it affects coverage."

During animated discussions throughout the course, Dunklee said, there are students who reflect a concern noted in a 2000 poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press: 53% of those surveyed said, "The people who decide what to put on TV news or in the newspapers are out of touch with people like me." Said Dunklee, "People in the course ask, 'Why do they cover this story -- and not that story, which is of real interest to us?'"

I first heard about "The Media: Freedom & Power" from Jacqueline Smith, an SCSU faculty member. "It is amazing and encouraging," she told me, "how the students' awareness of the First Amendment and the media grows during the semester. I always have them do an informal survey, toward the end of the course, of people outside the university. Our students, who had no clue themselves at the beginning of the semester, are appalled when they hear such answers to 'What are the five freedoms in the First Amendment?' as: 'The right to bear arms' or 'The pursuit of happiness.'"

Dunklee insisted: "No educated person in the United States should lack knowledge of the First Amendment and the press' role in a democratic society. From speech and press freedom flow all our freedoms."

Expressing a similar concern last Tuesday, Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger suspended the search for a new dean of Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism. "To teach the craft of journalism is a worthy goal, but clearly insufficient in this new world," Bollinger wrote in an e-mail message quoted by The New York Times. As a result, he indicated, the j-school could focus more on communications as the "critical element in forging democracies, markets, [and] culture."

Not only j-schools but high schools, colleges, and universities as well could help energize our democracy by creating their own versions of "The Media: Freedom & Power" -- open to all students.