Surveys the creative directors from 173 top United States advertising agencies regarding advertising education. Discusses their remarks regarding academe, "executional" issues (conceptual ability and skills), and professional issues (students' ability to sell themselves and to function in the real world). (SR)

Outlines three fact-finding sessions (included in a beginning reporting class) that give students knowledge of a small but well-chosen set of (principally paper) reference sources. Reports results of a survey of newspaper business editors regarding their use of paper reference works, and notes their support of such training. (SR)

Describes a technique that demystifies the creative process and teaches advertising students to understand that creativity is nothing more than taking something ordinary (a product) and looking at it from an extraordinary point of view (an ad). (SR)

Discusses ways in which journalism can contribute to the teaching of literature. Argues that the redeeming of journalism by teachers of literature will help to redeem literary studies itself. (SR)

Surveys media professionals as to how major marketplace changes are affecting the way media planning courses should be taught. Offers recommendations to teach students to: think conceptually, critically, and creatively; use numbers to determine and support their media decisions; contend with audience fragmentation and advertising clutter;…

Suggests strategies for computer-assisted reporting which students and professionals can apply to a database that they want to analyze. Identifies 13 such strategies, giving an example of each, pointing out some keys to selecting each strategy, and suggesting software most appropriate for carrying out each strategy. (SR)

Considers some challenges of teaching public journalism. Discusses how journalism educators can help students prepare for a career in the service of public life by teaching them how to actively involve citizens in the journalistic processes of gathering information, writing stories, and evaluating performance. Offers teaching applications and…

Shows how a reasonably thorough understanding of risk reporting can be taught in a basic environmental reporting course by applying S. Klaidman's (1990) "Reasonable Reader" approach. Discusses what risk reporting is and what its biases are. Outlines the environmental course, the teaching of risk reporting, and the "Reasonable…

Surveys print and broadcast journalism educators and professionals. Finds a gap, though not a particularly wide one, between the professional journalists and journalism educators concerning courses journalism programs should emphasize, important competencies for journalism students, mid-level professional training, the importance of various…

Presents key findings of the annual survey of journalism and mass communication enrollments. Finds faculty hiring and faculty size have stabilized; half of those hired have a doctorate; one in four hired come directly from graduate school; and administrators anticipate hiring faculty in print and broadcast journalism. Notes continued decline in…

Argues that one way to learn the art of concise, tightly-structured, focused prose is through the composing of 55-word short stories. Outlines stylistic characteristics of 55-word stories and discusses how its practice can improve journalistic writing. (SR)

Uses the relatively new science of fuzzy logic to review lower court and appellate court decisions from the last four decades regarding free expression in student publications. Finds pronounced effects, showing that fuzzy sets inherently favor administrators, while students show a strikingly high win/loss ratio when courts avoid fuzzy logic. (SR)

Finds that while students (studying broadcast journalism or advertising) and practitioners (station news directors and agency media directors) were in agreement on the majority of opinion statements discussing advertising's influence on broadcast news content, except students were less bothered by advertising's influence on news content than were…

Argues that advertising students should understand ethnic markets. Finds that only 15% of surveyed advertising professors said their departments offer courses focused exclusively on multicultural issues, only 13% said students were required to take courses relevant to ethnic advertising outside of their department, and over half spent three hours…

Finds that the majority of surveyed adult students taking a class in the three-weekend intensive format were happy with the overall format. Notes how employer reimbursement, gender, and extrinsically-oriented versus intrinsically-oriented motivation affect student satisfaction in this class format. (SR)