I’m teaching the beginning online journalism class at the University of Tennessee this fall. I’m very excited to work with the bright, eager young journalists at UT. I’m also VERY excited to have the opportunity to work with Professor Jim Stovall. Last fall, I worked with Professor Stovall and the talented Johnny Dobbins to develop the Tennessee Journalist web site for the Journalism and Electronic Media department.

This fall, my students will be learning how to report and write for the web. They will also get hands on experience with Satchmo (the TNJN.com Django-based content management system).

The journalism school received a grant from the Scripps Foundation to hire three professional “virtual adjuncts” to help teach online journalism, managing news web sites and editing for print/ web this fall and next spring. The adjunct will critique student work, provide teleconferenced lectures/discussions and work with students on class projects. This is a very important experiment for journalism education. It allows educators to connect with media professionals and provides both faculty and students with current, real-world input from the newsroom. Look for us to publish some articles about our experiment in the near future.

I’m collaborating with my good friend and former colleague, Peggy Collins (you may remember her from a previous post, Tax time with a twist!) Peggy has an amazing background and great hands on experience as a true multimedia reporter. She is currently working as a multimedia producer and coordinator for MSN Money in New York. Peggy’s real world professional experience is going to give the students a chance to interact with a very knowledgeable and seasoned reporter. Peggy’s feedback on student work will help round out my geekiness. So we hope.

When Peggy and I first started discussing our class, we talked at length about the definition of online journalism. I decided to start by defining what it’s not (IMHO).

1. It’s not shovelware. No good will ever come of shoveling print stories or broadcast packages onto a Web site. Unfortunately today, most traditional media organizations still use the Web as a secondary outlet for their content.

2. It’s not the wild, wild West. Although the Web as a medium for delivering news and information is still very new, it is not without some order. There are codes of conduct.

3. It’s not so much about HTML, Javascript, PHP or Django. Leave that stuff to the more highly evolved geeks. Online journalism is really about organizing facts, telling stories, sharing experiences, receiving feedback and having conversations.

I’ve got some pretty firm ideas about what online journalism should be…. but I hope that this semester, my students will teach me more than I teach them.

Today, I put the finishing touches on Thursday’s class discussion, What is news? I look forward to a lively discussion with my students on our first day of JEM 222.

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