Does going to university make you a better person?

[Tim Holmes]

Second marking the Ning blogs has been an interesting experience. Not only has it given me a chance to review the various arguments that exploded during the course of the module, it has also revealed a pretty persistent strand of thinking that can be characterised as:

"I have paid a lot of money to go to university and this puts me in a superior position to the people who have not done so.

"Therefore I will make a better journalist than those other people."

I make no comment about this, I do not want to start an argument about it, it is not restricted to one strand – but it is there and I really don't know how to react to it.

[Tim Holmes]

That Barthes reference in full.

[Tim Holmes]

Wow. Put my hand in a hornet's nest, it seems. And also proved yet again that the author really is dead (thank you Roland Barthes): the producer of a message has no control over the way that message will be consumed (interpreted and blogged upon.)

At no point did I say that going to university and, in particular, doing this course would not make you a better journalist than people who had not done so. I believe firmly, and with considerable empirical evidence to back that belief, that doing this course will make you a very much better journalist, more quickly, than someone who has not done it. That is because we (the staff, who I take the liberty to represent collectively here, though individuals may well have their own views) try to instill both philosophical and practical skills (the ability to reflect on what you are doing, the ability to, say, write a feature). To address a very specific point about monetary value, if you took short courses in all of the elements we offer in a single diploma option it would cost a great deal more than the university fee.

Of course, you know more about the mechanics and framework of journalism than the untrained citizen journalist. Of course you will be able to make more effective use of the raw materials than the average person in the street. Of course you can parlay your skills into a career of filtering, facilitating, editing, telling and retelling, and you have the ability to do it across a range of media platforms.

BUT - none of us (and my collective pronoun here bands together journalists) knows everything about everything and we can't be everywhere at once. Some "ordinary people" know a great deal more than us about certain things; some "ordinary people" find themselves witnessing extraordinary events: we need to be able to interact with those people. This is not new, journalists have been doing this for as long as there have been journalists (way back to early Chinese civilisations). However, the big difference is that "ordinary people" now have the power and means to record and publish material for themselves.

It may not be good journalism as we understand it, but it's there and it is important for us, as journalists, to be able to interact with this material and the people who produce it. Magazine students were given a perfect example of this during Matt Swaine's recent talk. For the benefit of those who were not there, Matt cited the example of an influential blogger who raised a firestorm over a feature in Trail magazine. This had a widespread negative impact because thanks to social networking sites, RSS and so on, influential bloggers can reach a large number of people very quickly.

However, using the same technology, Matt was able to open a dialogue with the blogger that eventually resulted in said blogger being brought into Trail's fold as a columnist. Now, instead of being outside the tent pissing in, he's inside the tent pissing out (well, by the sound of it, he's inside and going out with his lightweight entrenching tool when nature calls).

Matt also emphasised how important audio and video elements were. This was actually very encouraging for me as a tutor because it was clear that we (back to tutors), and in particular Matthew Yeomans, have brought you (students) pretty much up to and even slightly ahead of industry practice.

I have probably wandered way off point here and I know that I haven't addressed earlier criticisms of my original post. However, I can go some way to redressing that by saying that having now second marked the Capturing Cardiff stories I have been extremely impressed by the material and the way that so many of you (students) have been able to use a spread of techniques to tell stories of great insight and humanity.

Friends again?

[Howard Mustoe]

I think I'll stand by saying healthy is better than obese and good mental health is better than mental illness. I think you may have confused my description of what is "better" with the random labeling of "good people" and "bad people". Very different.

There is no evidence to suggest there is a higher proportion of poorly educated people who commit crimes. To say that would mean identifying a link between education and morality. Goebbels had a doctorate. Christ was an unschooled carpenter.

I said graduates are statistically less likely to commit violent crimes.

[Elizabeth-Anne]

Howard: I think you might want to rephrase that. Being overweight or mentally ill does not make you a bad person. And there is naturally going to be a higher proportion of poorly educated people who commit crimes.

[Elizabeth-Anne]

Matt: I was more referring to the original post, which I thought was rather unclear. I think *you're* absolutely right, I just don't really understand Tim's post.

[Howard Mustoe]

In direct answer to the title question, "Does going to university make you a better person?", graduates are statistically less likely to commit violent crimes, suffer from mental illness or suffer obesity. So, yes.

[matthew yeomans]

mmmm...maybe I should have been even more specific...

"my readers really do know more than me"......about the topics I write about NOT how to report, research and write high quality journalism.

[Elizabeth-Anne]

Ok, so. Being on this course is not going to make us better journalists than people who haven't had any training. Maybe someone could fill me in on what I'm paying £5000 for?

Call be old fashioned, but I believe there is a place in this world for expertise, knowledge, and knowing enough about something not to get sued. I don't believe the attitude put about so much these days that the man in the street knows just as much about everything as someone with training in a particular area. If that were the case I could be a policeman on the basis of having watched Poirot.

Kind of worried about my R+R marks now, seeing as I said there was a place for knowledgable journalism in the world...

[matthew yeomans]

ummm....I meant:

readers WHO GIVE you feedback

[matthew yeomans]

Guys,

my hope - and I'm sure it is the same for all the tutors - is that you all come out of your time at Cardiff very well-prepared to become great journalists and keep learning as you go on.

What I also hope is that none of you consider yourselves superior in your role of journalists to the people you cover and, yes, those other lay-persons snapping away and blogging out there.

I have many reservations about citizen journalism but one lesson that I've learned over the last few years is that, as Dan Gilmor wrote, my readers really do know more than me.

What that means is that I try and approach every subject with an open mind and I look to learn from those I interview and from readers you give feedback. That's what keeps journalism interesting to me and hopefully will enable me to keep adapting in an ever-changing workplace.

Professional journalism is full of people who consider themselves above the "crowd" because of their power to be on TV, radio or write/edit a paper/magazine. It's a smugness that won't stand those people in good stead to adapt to the changes our industry is facing because it closes their minds to the potential of great journalism in this digital age.

I want all of you to leave Cardiff with the skills and the confidence to excel. But I also want you to be intrigued and hungry to make your mark in this new media landscape. You're going to hate me for saying this but I think it's good that you feel nervous and worried about the future and if you will get a job. That is what is going to drive you forward and keep you awake to the new opportunities that will come your way.

It's okay to be a bit scared - 20-years on I still feel that way every day. It also makes me want to succeed even more.....often with very mixed results! :)