01 May 2008
Press Training Changing Slowly in Russia, Journalist Finds
Journalism education remains rooted in Soviet past, says S. Adam Cardais
Permission has been granted for Web site use and translation into Russian by S. Adam Cardais. Credit should be given to the author and carry the following: Reprinted with permission from Global Journalist, Spring 2008.
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A RUSSIAN JOURNALISM PRIMER
By S. Adam Cardais
Global Journalist, Spring 2008
Journalism education remains rooted in its Soviet past, but change is coming.
When University of Missouri Professor Byron Scott went to Russia in 2003 to help reshape the journalism curriculum at Moscow State University, it didn't take him long to see that there would be some considerable resistance to change.
Students largely applauded efforts to modernize the curriculum through the introduction of Western teaching techniques such as Power Point presentations and class discussion, while the faculty was harder to win over.
“After some shock and surprise, once [the students] decided we were serious, they responded very well," says Scott. The senior professors, on the other hand, “came to my seminars (on pedagogical technique), listened politely, asked polite questions – and then did things as they had done before.”
Though the Russian journalism education system has changed some since the fall of the Soviet Union, it also remains cemented in tradition.
“I would say it hasn't changed a lot,” says Vitaly Vinichenko, deputy dean of the Informatics department in the School of Philology and Journalism of Southern Federal University in Rostov-on-Don. “It's still the same as in Soviet years.”
For financial, administrative and philosophical reasons, Russian journalism education has held onto a conservative, largely theoretical pedagogy. It has been slow to modernize. This has resulted in a system that ill-prepares graduates to work in an immature and politically stifled media landscape.
THEORY OVER PRACTICE
More than 100 educational institutions offer journalism education in Russia, the largest being MSU. Yassen Zassoursky was the dean of its journalism school for 42 years before leaving the post in November 2007, and has been on faculty for more than 50 years. In that time, he's seen great change in Russian journalism education.
Under the Soviet system, he said, “journalists were seen as soldiers of the Communist Party. Today, education is targeted toward students making their own conclusions.”
At the same time, however, many media and education experts in and outside of Russia say its modern journalism curriculum hasn't traveled very far from the Soviet era. Courses emphasizing domestic and international media history, literature and language instead of training in reporting or editing are the norm.
Vinichenko points out that journalism educators see their job as giving students a broad cultural knowledge base, while internships are supposed to provide so-called "craft skills" such as reporting or interviewing.
The craft model, practiced by many top American universities, heavily emphasizes practical journalism skills such as crafting a lead and the inverted pyramid style of news writing. Professor Mitchell Stephens of New York University, an architect of the Russian-American Journalism Institute, cautions however against galvanizing the American approach as the world model.
"You could say journalism education in the [United] States is stuck on the craft model” at the expense of teaching a broader, more analytically oriented curriculum, Stephens says. The result, he continues, is a dry, often boring U.S. media that are “trying to muzzle what they really think.”
American schools also encourage students to gain experience through internships, but the Russian strategy - that universities will teach the theory while the real world will teach the practical - is precarious because the media aren't prepared to train students or recent graduates, according to Russian academics and editors.
THE UNPREPARED GRADUATE
Vinichenko says his students are required to intern during breaks between years but often come back with clips resembling public relations statements, and that good internships under competent, experienced reporters and editors at top publications are few.
MSU sends its students “to serious newspapers where editors make it clear that they want news, not public relations," Zassoursky says.
Studies evaluating the preparedness of Russian graduates to enter the workplace are hard to come by, but anecdotal evidence suggests students lack basic skills for making the leap from the classroom to the newsroom.
A journalism degree does not appear to carry much value in the eyes of the Russian media. Kirill Kharatian, deputy editor-in-chief of the Russian-language business newspaper Vedomosti, comments that a degree, "is not a plus. Outstanding people with journalism education can be good journalists, but that's because of character, not education.”
Ultimately, the overriding message is that graduates leave university unprepared. They are not learning the basic skills necessary for entry-level positions either at school or first-rate internships, the latter of which are by all accounts scarce.
From an educational standpoint, what's the solution? If students aren't learning fundamental, essential skills at school or in the workplace, how are they supposed to learn them?
TOP-DOWN EDUCATION REFORM
One answer is through cooperation with Western universities. Daria Shlyakhina is a student who participated in the Russian-American Journalism Institute. She speaks glowingly about the experience, saying the program redefined her understanding of journalism and changed her professional life.
During the intrusive four-week course, American and Russian instructors taught a range of subjects, from a seminar on blogging to broadcasting and editing. The students also published the RAJI Times magazine.
“It was much different,” Shlyakhina says. “In our university, we have [many] theoretical lessons. We have just a few journalistic topics. But at RAJI we studied journalism 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and after this went out to write stories."
Another example of western-style journalism education was the Educated Media Foundation. Gillian McCormack is a consultant with Internews Europe who worked in Russia coordinating journalism training programs with the foundation before the nongovernmental organization was forced to suspend its operations last April.
McCormack says she sees the government crack down on NGOs as linked to "a heightened suspicion of what such organizations do” over the last several years following democratic changes in Georgia and Ukraine. At the moment, she says, the Kremlin wants media to know their place and stay in line.
Putin’s strong grip dearly impedes Russian journalism education outside universities, both in the newsroom and from NGOs. Ultimately, though, the future of the Russian news business could prove pivotal to the future of Russian journalism education.
This will hinge on if and how the political climate develops under recently elected President Dmitrv Medvedev's administration.
"The problem with the climate now is that the government wants loyal and uncritical media, which means they are effectively being constrained from doing their job as watchdog of society's interests," says McCormack.
If the media establishment gains enough autonomy to continue raising its voice with demands for journalism programs to begin producing graduates with the basic skills necessary for entry-level positions, this could be a huge catalyst for a kind of top-down education reform, Scott says.
"There is no question that professional journalists are quietly lobbying for change in Russian journalism education. But their only real weapon is closing the internship pipeline or refusing to hire graduates," says Scott. Nevertheless, he adds: “A lot of the change is going to come; it's going to come from [professional journalists]. That's a significant force for change, and you're already seeing it."
[S. Adam Cardais has worked in Europe as journalist since 2004 covering business, economic, and social issues. His work has appeared in the Prague Post, BusinessWeek and Transitions Online among other media.]
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