Professional Qualifications of Novice Journalists: How European and Russian Teachers See Them in the Future

Section: Sociology of Journalism

Discussions on the transformation of the journalistic profession do not stop in academic and professional communities. They are reflected in major international studies focusing on the way the future of journalism is seen by practicing journalists and students searching the place at the labor market. This paper examines the expectations of one more stakeholder of journalism education: teachers engaged in training future journalists. Their understanding of the future of the profession in the 21st century has not been thoroughly studied so far. To fill this gap, the European Journalism Training Association (EJTA) decided to examine the teachers’ reflection on the future of journalistic roles, values and qualifications in the member universities. A large-scale survey was conducted in January-February 2018 and involved more than one thousand respondents from 69 European universities, including three Russian universities, members of the Association. The authors of the paper focused on one segment of the study — teachers’ prognoses for the professional qualifications of future journalists. A comparative analysis of beliefs expressed by European and Russian responding teachers indicated a high level of consensus:. In the 10 year term, both groups of respondents named as main qualifications for the future the quality of the information communicated by journalists and the basic principles of the profession: a search for relevant sources, exclusion of unreliable information, attaining information balance in the materials, a deep insight into the problem and understanding the context of the ongoing events.

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