A rant from Iowa State
Michael Bugeja directs a journalism school in 21st
Century America, where he preaches that the Internet and new technology is “the
scorpion” that will poison and kill journalism.
In what I consider the best argument against tenure, Bugeja
cursed the connected world that is rapidly passing him by in the keynote
address at our Midwest regional spring conference for the Society of
Professional Journalists.
The theme of
the conference?
Convergence of new
media.
Yes, this guy. Bugeja says new gadgetry has us chained to our newsroom desks, forcing us to do all
of our reporting through the telephone and email. By the way, he says telephones and telegraphs are not bad. Apparently, he thinks any innovation that
happened, say, after Henry Ford, is dooming us.
“I don’t know when he was last in a newsroom,” said Jared
Strong of the Des Moines Register, who sat in on the panel “What I Wish I Had
Learned in Journalism School But Didn’t.”
If Bugeja had bothered to observe some modern newsrooms, he
would know that technology actually allows me to get out of the office more, be
where the news is, because I’m always connected through my smart phone, my
email and my ability to deliver the news through a variety of media, including
Twitter.
Of course, Bugeja hates Twitter. And Facebook. And really
any of the ways that people like to connect now and trade information.
I began covering his speech on Twitter.
Andy Dickinson
answered that maybe Bugeja is just trying to get attention.
The most disturbing part of Bugeja’s views is, he could be
any of our bosses. In many newsrooms
across the country, people are resisting change with his same fervor, as the
world changes around us. In his speech,
he kept referring to himself as “a reporter,” as if that some how brought him
out of his academic daydream and down to reality with the rest of us. It didn’t.
If he really worked as a reporter, in a world without
tenure, he would have to face the realities of technology.
He would have to learn new ways or
reporting, or he would soon be without a job.
He would soon be called into an editor’s office and be told to get up to
speed, or be replaced.
But he doesn’t
work in that world of declining circulations and ad revenue that’s moving to
the web.
So he can stick his head up
his campus and pretend that he knows best.
I felt bad for the journalism
students I met at Iowa State who are bright and ambitious and having to listen
to this. I felt bad for the older journalists in the room, meaning about my
age, because some were nodding and smiling as if this were really making sense.
Still, Bugeja showed he has a glimmer of recognition
for reality. For all his resistance, he understands the Web can produce
transparency in journalism, allowing our audience to study our notes, our
source documents, to hear our interviews.
Don’t feel sorry for his students, either. They’re smart enough to see the ironies of
the chancing media world around them and how out of touch the director of their
school seems to be.
“The thing is,” one student told me about Bugeja, “you can only reach him by email.”