The news media environment of the 21st century requires journalism students to master a wide range of skills. Students are expected to demonstrate not only news writing, video editing, podcasting, and social media abilities, but also are pushed to carve their own content niche (Mensing and Ryfe, 2013; Barnes and de Villiers Scheepers, 2017). Future professional journalists can choose from careers in public affairs reporting, sports journalism, environmental journalism, international reporting, and health journalism, among many others. This increasing pressure to simultaneously generalize in skills and specialize in knowledge represents a challenge to journalism schools that have to try to adapt their curricula to follow industry trends (Parks, 2015).
This highly competitive environment is in part the result of a crisis in the business model of media organizations. This crisis has affected the number of traditional reporting jobs, including those in specialized beats such as environmental and science reporting (Pew Research Center, 2016). The rise of social media, the decline of local newspapers, and the uncertainty of viable advertising models within news media are some issues that journalists and journalism students need to consider as they move and develop their professional careers (Franklin, 2014). In addition, trust in news media organizations is shifting along party lines, with Democrats more likely than Republicans to trust information coming from the media (Barthel and Mitchell, 2017). Such contemporary economic and professional pressures have placed greater responsibility on individual journalists to contribute across the production process, not just reporting or photographing or editing or designing or marketing content, but performing all of these tasks for every assignment. Demand for such diversely skilled professionals places a special burden on journalism schools. At the same time, it represents an opportunity, because journalists who seek to expand their knowledge base and develop new skills and expertise might seek a graduate education. The present moment, therefore, is a particularly fruitful time to investigate the role graduate curricula play in students’ professional development, and to evaluate how practitioners reflect on the relative value of their varying graduate experiences.
There is limited research examining specialized journalism graduate programs in the U.S. This study addresses that lack by examining how graduates from an environmental journalism program perceive their training and the ways in which such training has affected their professional careers and their journalistic and communication work. Using the framework of knowledge-based journalism (Patterson, 2013; Donsbach, 2014), this study explores the educational and post-graduation experiences of alumni at a major research university in the Midwest with a focus on environmental journalism. Knowledge-based journalism suggests that to effectively serve poorly informed publics, journalists should be less generalists and more specialists in a particular area by mastering five competencies: knowledge of history and liberal arts, understanding of a particular subject, knowledge about mass communication process, professional skills, and a commitment to professional values and roles. Although there are some theoretical discussions about the applicability of the framework to environmental reporting, there is limited empirical evidence about its associated pedagogical practices, application in newsrooms, or outcomes (e.g., quality reporting and effects on audiences).
The study is based on the qualitative analysis of interviews with 13 graduates, examining the ways in which the knowledge-based journalism dimensions of skills training, acquiring general and content-specific knowledge, learning communication theory, and developing journalistic values allowed graduates to develop a niche in their professional careers.
Problems and Challenges in the Practice of Environmental Journalism
Past research in environmental journalism has mostly focused on the characteristics (Sachsman et al., 2008, 2010), challenges (Detjen et al., 2000) and practices (Tandoc and Takahashi, 2014a) of reporters. This extant research highlights shortcomings in the reporting, such as lack of accuracy in scientific reporting, bias in the use of sources, struggles in balancing objectivity and advocacy, and the individual and structural factors that affect the reporting (Palen, 1999; Detjen et al., 2000; Sachsman et al., 2005; Crow and Stevens, 2012; Tandoc and Takahashi, 2014b). In addition, environmental and science reporters are experiencing changes in their perceived societal roles, especially within online news production (Fahy and Nisbet, 2011; Tandoc and Takahashi, 2014b). Fahy and Nisbet (2011) suggest that science journalists should take on the roles of knowledge brokers or information curators to differentiate themselves from other information producers (e.g., blog writers, scientists, and public relations professionals). But recent scholarship in journalism suggests that some problems specialty journalists experience are due not only to the volatile news environment in which journalists now work, but also to insufficient educational training. Donsbach (2014); and Nisbet and Fahy (2015) argue that it is imperative to build stronger foundational knowledge among future journalists during their education, and that this education be realigned with community needs (Mensing, 2010). Next we examine some of the main ways in which scholars suggest journalism education should be reimagined to address the problems identified in extant research.
