Passion and creativity in journalism teaching and practice: #AJE25 Day 2 Session 5.

Following on from Tony Harcup’s keynote, newly elected AJE chair Margaret Hughes from the University of the West of Scotland spoke of how to inspire enthusiasm for students to enable them to engage more meaningfully with their studies.

Her survey of journalists and educators showed a wide range of issues, including how universities don’t seem to understand what journalism courses do. But overall her research showed the passion and commitment to journalism and its importance in society is still on fire in those who teach the skills to the next generation.

AJE committee member and event host Caroline Jones’s presentation – Journalism Enduring: Refining our understanding of historical transformations in the journalistic craft, asked several questions. This included: if journalism is constantly in crisis, how does it endure? She showed examples throughout history where the future of journalism was perceived to be under threat.

Teaching and researching journalism in an arts and design university was the subject of the AJE’s Lucia Vodanovic from the London College of Communication, based within University of the Arts, London (UAL). Teaching in an arts-only university means that Lucia’s courses have more opportunities to collaborate with artists and she noted how many artworks are now using journalistic techniques of filming and printing.

The final presentation in this session was from Anna Jones and Gemma Horton from the University of Sheffield. Their research is: Can teaching solutions-focused global reporting early on, tackle news apathy in journalism students?

Their research looked further afield than the standard local news which underpins the real-life reporting of most training, but at global news and positive news and solutions journalism.

To access the programme for the conference click here