Editors' Comments

Newspaper Research Journal, Spring 2004 by Izard, Ralph

NRJ

Volume 25, No. 2 * Spring 2004

The evolution of NR/ during its 25 years of existence is gratifying to those of us who have been involved. It's a strong product and continues today under the current editors with a goal that is unique among research publications. It still seeks to include research that might make a difference in the newspaper world and to present those results in a manner that will be understood both by academics and professionals.

Have we succeeded? Only partly. In spite of some pockets of excellence, we academics who produce this journal still have not convinced enough of our professional colleagues of the value NRJ canbring to them. Further, we still have not convinced enough of our academic colleagues that it is possible to conduct professionally meaningful research and to communicate our results readably and effectively.

The goal, as I have said on these pages many times, must be to achieve simultaneously academic and professional excellence. And to mean something.

In spite of my concern about the lack of professional attention, I know good research is of interest in the professional world. My evidence is anecdotal, but firm in my mind. During my time as editor, I received frequent telephone calls from journalists who were doing media-related stories. Their question was always similar: "I'm writing a story on (something). Has any research been conducted on that subject?"

Journalists always are looking for fresh knowledgeable sources, and NK/ should be one of those sources-both as a result of having published research on journalistic issues that attract public interest and as a result of scholars having studied the journalistic process in a way that helps media decision-makers.

For these reasons, may I presume to recommend an agenda for NK/ in the future? Clearly, in an information age, in a time of national debate and, especially, in a time of diminishing public respect for our news media, continued careful planning of the issues with which NK/ deals is necessary.

The following is my list of recommendations. It includes problem areas that both journalism education and the professions must face as we move more deeply into the 21st century. Realistic dealing with these points requires that we go beyond the commonplace and conduct more far-reaching research.

Professionalism

Can we design research that will carry us beyond the current emphasis on important individual cases in which journalists and their organizations have failed? Clearly, the sins of Jayson Blair, Jack Kelley and others, covered extensively in the news, give impetus to many of our studies about ethics, about journalistic practice and about standards. This is fine, but they are cases.

I happen to believe that journalists, in general, these days are more ethical than ever before. Let's continue to conduct the kind of research that tests this proposition. First of all, I guess, is the proposition that journalists are more ethical true? Why? Why is it that media credibility in the eyes of the public continues to decline? Is that really a problem? What are the journalistic values that both confirm and apparently conflict with public beliefs? We probably don't need a technical debate on whether journalism is a profession. But, surely, we need research on what is required to achieve professionalism.

Diversity

We need research on diversity as a value, not simply as a set of numbers, one-shot programs, individual success stories and hand-wringing about the continued lack of success in both the professional and academic worlds. We live, we teach, we cover news in a diverse world. Unless we are diverse in all that we do and all that we are, we're teaching and journalistically presenting only a partial truth. We simply cannot omit large portions of our communities or major social perspectives and claim to be doing our jobs either as educators or journalists.

Our research about diversity, as it has grown in recent years, is important and merits continued attention. But we also need to add the larger picture because we're not even in agreement these days about why diversity is important. If we believe diversity is important, we need to know how diversity may become such an essential part of what we believe that it is automatically part of what we do.

Technology

Technology is overwhelming us, and so far our response has been to flail at everything and hope we land an occasional punch. That's not surprising, of course, given the rapidity of technological development, and we all know of success stories. But we have not carried our research agenda-in the media and in the academy-far enough.

We need to know more about the impact of convergence, both as an instrument of production and as a journalistic product that reaches the audience. Obviously, we need to know more about the role of the Internet and how to gain its maximum benefit in news production. It could be beneficial to teachers and news managers to know how audiences react to Web site content. How can we present information that is compelling and informative? Most of all, I suppose, we need to work hard just to keep up and try to develop research that looks for broad meaning beyond today and today's new gadget.