ASJMC Training Statement
ASJMC Statement on the Need for Professional Development
Adopted Spring 2007 by the membership
The digital revolution is not only transforming journalism but also calling on
journalists to reinvent themselves. To do that, journalists, their news and professional organizations and journalism and mass communication programs need to expedite sophisticated, strategic training that helps solve the problems faced by journalists experiencing rapid, dramatic changes in their jobs and lives.
Professional development has to be viewed not as a frill to be cut from newsroom budgets at the first sign of an economic downturn but as an investment that pays dividends in more engaging journalism and more adaptive news organizations. The traditional audience members for journalists are becoming producers as well as consumers of news. The individual news media--whether newspaper, magazine, radio or television--are evolving into innovative multimedia providers of interactive maps and other products that improve the quality of the news.
These new realities demand that educators and professionals alike give a higher priority to training for journalists, collaborate with one another on training and bring training closer to newsrooms. A recent study of 2,000 news people in all media indicated that 90% of journalists and news executives want more training. But only 30% of the nation's newsrooms increased training in the past five years. More than twice as many newsrooms stood still or cut training.
Still, there are hopeful signs. The recently published "News, Improved" shows how newsrooms can remake themselves. Training initiatives by university journalism and mass communication programs and news and professional organizations are forces for progress.
We commit ASJMC to playing more of a leadership role in promoting and providing training opportunities and in assessing the training role journalism and mass communication programs can play. We ask that news organizations with the resources to fund training partner with those educational institutions best able to provide the training. We also call on all those who care about the role of journalism in educating the citizens of a democracy to embrace change and undertake strategic professional training in a way that it has never been undertaken before.
(Note: A similar statement on the need for training was proposed by ASJMC to the Council of National Journalism Organizations in Spring 2007. It was endorsed by 32 members of the council. That statement and the list of supporting organizations can be found on the CNJO website at www.cnjo.org).
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