CONTACT: James Stewart, Nicholls State University, 2019-20 ASJMC President and David Perlmutter, Texas Tech University, 2019-20 AEJMC President | June 9, 2020

Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication (ASJMC)
and Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC)

“Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as
outraged as those who are.” — Benjamin Franklin

We the Boards of Directors of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication (ASJMC) and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) present this joint statement to condemn arrests and violence toward journalists covering widespread citizen protests for racial justice.

The protests and demonstrations across the U.S. are meant to call attention to the brutal treatment that communities of color, especially Black Americans, endure. The majority of these demonstrations are peaceful; however, there have been numerous instances where citizens have been injured in clashes with police wielding batons, rubber bullets and tear gas in their efforts to dismantle crowds.

Among the injured and arrested this time are working journalists, predominantly Black journalists such as CNN’s Omar Jimenez, and later his colleagues Bill Kirkos and Leone Mendez while working in Minneapolis; Branden Hunter at the Detroit Free Press; and Tyler Blint-Welsh at the Wall Street Journal, all of whom were detained while reporting from the field. News photographer Linda Tirado was shot in the face with a rubber bullet while photographing protests in Minneapolis; doctors have determined that she is blind in her left eye as a result.

One of the canons of the U.S. Constitution is the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of the press and the right to assembly. These are bedrocks of Americans’ freedoms. When the Kerner Commission Report was released in 1968, it pointed to the need for more minorities working in newsrooms to provide accurate and sensitive coverage of people of color and their communities. More than 50 years later, we see targeted arrests of journalists of color who seek through reporting to provide inclusion and perspective for all communities, and do so at great peril.

Journalists in Minneapolis, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Houston, and other communities are there to bear witness; they are there to capture and report the voices, sights and sounds of individuals who are not just protesting, but want people to listen to their reality. Listen to the pain and loss caused by the violent murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, and so many more Black lives taken by police brutality and misconduct.

America must address its societal issues from racism and discrimination, to #MeToo, LGBTQ+, immigration, the haves and have nots, the COVID-19 pandemic, and, of course, the political partisanship across the nation that has fueled national division. Journalists must be able to report freely if we have any hope of understanding and addressing the issues that ail our nation.  Journalists should not face arrest and physical injury for doing their jobs. As journalism educators, we oppose violence of any type, particularly against working journalists who are covering the important stories as they happen.

Journalists are our watchdogs; when news reporting is carried out with professionalism, keen insight and inclusion, it doggedly seeks to capture all voices. Those in higher education who prepare journalists to undertake professional work support and encourage journalists of all hues to look for the underlying story to give context to people’s lives and communities.

ASJMC and AEJMC are here to spotlight that moment where preparation (education and training) meets application – no greater example exists right now than the protests spreading across the nation. The vast majority of academics in communication and journalism schools are former journalists and media professionals, with many still in practice. The work of journalists matters in capturing history as it unfolds. Higher education challenges and prepares journalists to do this well. Whether by pen and paper, camera or cell phone, legacy media or new media, when history unfolds the Fourth Estate is there to tell the story. ASJMC and AEJMC unequivocally support this First Amendment right, and we stand in support of journalists doing their work to tell the stories that need to be told.
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Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication (ASJMC)
ASJMC is a non-profit, educational association composed of some 190 JMC programs at the college level. The majority of the association’s members are in the United States and Canada. ASJMC promotes excellence in journalism and mass communication education. Founded in 1917, ASJMC works to support the purposes of schools of journalism and mass communication in order to achieve the following goals: to foster, encourage and facilitate high standards and effective practices in the process and administration of education for journalism and mass communication in institutions of higher learning; to cooperate with journalism and mass communication organizations in efforts to raise professional standards and promote a public understanding of the role of journalism and mass communication in a democratic society; and to support and participate in the accreditation process of journalism and mass communication units through the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (ACEJMC).

Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC)
The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) is a nonprofit organization of more than 3,700 educators, students and practitioners from around the globe. Founded in 1912, by Willard Grosvenor Bleyer, the first president (1912-13) of the American Association of Teachers of Journalism, as it was then known, AEJMC is the oldest and largest alliance of journalism and mass communication educators and administrators at the college level. AEJMC’s mission is to promote the highest possible standards for journalism and mass communication education, to encourage the widest possible range of communication research, to encourage the implementation of a multi-cultural society in the classroom and curriculum, and to defend and maintain freedom of communication in an effort to achieve better professional practice, a better informed public, and wider human understanding.

 

LATEST STATEMENT:

May 18, 2020

Dear AEJMC Colleagues:

We hope you, your families, and your friends and associates are staying safe and healthy amid the COVID-19 pandemic and accompanying dislocations. This is certainly a year when the terms “extraordinary” and “unprecedented,” when applied to almost everything in academia, including national conferences, seem like understatements.

I write to share key updates and details about the AEJMC 2020 virtual conference August 6–9 and pre-conference events on August 5. (You will find additional information on the conference FAQ page.)

The 2020 conference, although different in format from any previous AEJMC event, promises exciting prospects both familiar and innovative. If you are presenting a paper or poster or serving on a panel, you will still interact. We have a compelling keynote panel headlining the conference theme of “Saving the Planet through Better Media and Communication” and featuring viewings of and discussion about the stunning documentary on modern science communication, Science Friction. Our Cornerstone Session is particularly relevant, addressing the topic of teaching during the pandemic. Overall, we will offer opportunities for intellectual stimulation, social engagement, exchange of teaching and research ideas, and career development that you’ve always counted on in early August.

Registration for AEJMC 2020 opens May 22. We have reduced registration rates to benefit our attendees. “Early bird” rates, valid until July 9, have been reduced by $50 for regular members and lowered by $40 for student and retired members. Click here to view registration rates.

We expect the costs for the virtual conference to total $273,000. We have projected that about 1,070 people will register for the conference. So, to meet the costs of the conference, we need to charge an average of $255 per registrant in registration fees – which also allows a margin for extra, unanticipated costs. You may view the original conference budget for the in-person event here and the new approved budget for the virtual conference here.

Conference costs currently include $90,000 paid to vFairs, which will operate the conference virtual site; costs for the All-Academic submission and review software; costs of building the conference website; the registration portal; bank charges; and the cost of the printing of the conference program, which will be mailed to you. Conference expenses also include some items AEJMC has already paid for like Guidebook (app), and professional headshots, which will both be set up for the 2021 conference.

The decisions leading to setting these rates have not been easy.

Part of our charge as a board and staff is to ensure the fiscal health of our organization for now and the future. In previous years, the conference provided income for the AEJMC budget. However, faced with the challenges for academics during the COVID-19 pandemic, the reduced registration rates for AEJMC 2020 will allow us only to break even. Nevertheless, we will continue to subsidize member assistance programs, such as free registration for up to three top-paper-winner graduate students per division. As many as 75 graduate students will benefit.

We believe that AEJMC 2020 will bring together an engaging array of sessions on current developments, research, teaching, professional freedom and responsibility, and jobs and career mentoring in a format that, by default, will be live, synchronous, and recorded. (So, for the first time, you won’t have to worry about missing a session you want to see because you’re presenting at another session!) We also will host social events for you to network and connect with colleagues. We want your experience to be as “normal” as possible through the new modality while at the same time providing new features.

Besides this overview, I want to offer some personal context and perspectives, based on my involvement with AEJMC as a graduate student starting in the 1990s through my participation on the Research and Finance Committees, and now as president and a member of the Board of Directors.

First, AEJMC is a remarkably democratic organization. Elected officials, or those appointed by them, make most decisions. The AEJMC staff advises and executes, but the final responsibility for direction rests with the leadership you elect. The AEJMC Board of Directors works with its various constituencies and represents them well. Over the past months, every one of our discussions has been a robust exchange with dissenting ideas, but eventually resulting in near-unanimous votes for action.

Second, due to my almost 20 years of writing for The Chronicle of Higher Education and my general interest in how academia works, I have had the opportunity to compare and contrast AEJMC with many other professional associations. I have concluded that we run a lean operation. We have a small staff with many responsibilities that operates in an efficient manner on a small budget. The organization doesn’t strive for “big profits,” nor does it carry a weighty bureaucratic apparatus. We commend the AEJMC staff for accomplishing the miracle of successful conferences, year after year, in addition to all the other services they provide. It is a tribute to their work ethic, integrity, and commitment to cause.

Third, we are heartened to learn from the positive experience of the virtual format of the AEJMC Southeast Colloquium 2020 in March. We have adopted best practices from peer groups such as the American Academy of Advertising (AAA), which ran its San Diego conference in March virtually as well. We also intend to study the plans and/or actions of the International Communication Association (ICA), Broadcast Education Association (BEA), National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), National Communication Association (NCA), and other peer organizations. We urge you to share your experiences or knowledge with us and each other as you design your individual or group sessions.

Indeed, I think AEJMC 2020 will be a learning experience for all of us. AEJMC was founded in 1912 and has evolved into a global association of 3,700 members from 50 nations. AEJMC has weathered trials and tribulations in our rich history of 108 years. There will be other crises, global and local, in future years. We can now appreciate and script how to get things right and impart our insights to our successors—which, after all, is what education is all about.

In sum, I hope the conference planning and the event itself will be an exemplar of how disparate individuals and interests can sustain a common goal: the continued success of AEJMC and impact on all members. Each session will succeed through the talents and cooperation of the people involved. We rely on your ideas, ingenuity, and compassion. Thank you for supporting and contributing to our scholarly and professional community. AEJMC has thrived and will continue to thrive because of you.

See you at AEJMC 2020 in August!

David D. Perlmutter, Ph.D.
2019-2020
President, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication

 

 

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April 30, 2020

Dear AEJMC Members,

I hope this note finds you, your families, and your colleagues healthy and accomplishing your professional goals.

I write to report that in light of the health, travel safety, access, and funding concerns affecting you, our members, the AEJMC Board has voted unanimously to “go virtual” for our 2020 conference (retaining the same August 6-9 dates and related pre-conference events on August 5). We feel this is the safest and best decision for our attendees, their families, and staff. As many of you realize, we have been in talks since mid-February with our board of directors, staff, members, and the hotel with which we are contracted to explore all potential options for the 2020 conference. AEJMC just this week completed negotiations with the San Francisco hotel to move our 2020 contract to 2025 with no penalty. (Cancelling the contract sooner would have incurred for the association an almost $700,000 penalty.) We also feel we have learned much from our discussions with and observations of other professional associations that have offered or are about to offer virtual conferences.

Our intention is to provide our AEJMC community with a rich, valuable, and engaging experience.

We look forward to sending you a more detailed update on the AEJMC 2020 Virtual Conference within the next three weeks.

So thank you for your patience and support. There were 1,617 total submissions (1,166 full papers and 451 extended abstracts) to the All-Academic site for the 2020 competition. This is higher than the last two conferences.

See you at AEJMC 2020 in August!

Note: What if you have already booked a hotel room?
Don’t worry – you may cancel:
MARRIOTT MARQUIS CANCEL POLICY
You must call 72 hours prior to the day of your arrival to cancel your room reservation to avoid a one-night room and tax penalty. This information should be included in your reservation confirmation also.
888-236-2427 or 888-575-8934

Thank you for being a member of the AEJMC Community!

David D. Perlmutter, Ph.D.
2019-2020
President, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication

 

 

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March 27, 2020

Dear AEJMC Colleagues,

AEJMC will have a 2020 conference! The questions the Board will resolve are: What does it look like and when and where it will be? Currently, we are looking at many options and also talking to our peers in other organizations who have gone through or are facing some of the same choices we need to make. We have found that engagement to be extremely fruitful. The staff are also working hard to make sure that we are fully informed about all costs, trade-offs, and details. With all this in mind, our intention is to make a final decision around the first week of May. We cannot make a final decision at this time, because the penalty amount (right now) would be cost prohibitive to the organization. That said, again, the AEJMC Conference 2020 will occur! Conference details may be found on the conference website: http://aejmc.org/events/sanfrancisco20/.

David D. Perlmutter, Ph.D.
2019-2020
President, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication

 

 

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March 9, 2020

Dear AEJMC Colleagues,

We wanted to let you know that we are proceeding as normal for planning the AEJMC 2020 Academic Conference in San Francisco.

We have not received any information that would lead us to alter our planning or programming besides the obvious recommended safety and security measures.

We will issue further updates if there are any changes.

David D. Perlmutter, Ph.D.
2019-2020
President, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication

 

Service Learning in Journalism & Mass Communication

By Emily T. Metzgar
AEJMC Standing Committee
on Teaching
Indiana University
emetzgar@indiana.edu

 

 

(Article courtesy of AEJMC News, March 2020 issue)

Of the fifteen institutions included in Gallup’s annual Confidence in Institutions survey in 2019, only Congress ranked lower (15th) than television news (14th). Newspapers didn’t fare much better (12th), although they did rank one step above big business (13th).  The bottom line? Americans just don’t hold contemporary media in very high regard.

No doubt the contemporary political environment contributes to the media’s ranking here, but these institutions have been in the poll’s basement for years as public concern about media credibility, accountability, and objectivity has settled in. Methinks there’s more going on here. What about public perceptions of journalists’ empathy (or lack thereof)? Could that be a contributing factor to the profession’s decline in the public’s estimation?

Consider a video that made the rounds in late January. CNN anchor Don Lemon was hosting an on-air discussion during which he laughed repeatedly while a guest mocked the supposed ignorance of conservative voters. Making fun of half the American electorate probably isn’t a winning strategy for regaining the public’s confidence or reclaiming lost market share. But what does it suggest about the state of journalism in the United States?

It suggests a growing chasm between the professionals who produce the news and the audiences that professional journalists purport to serve. It suggests that we, as instructors in journalism and mass communication, must ensure that students don’t leave our classrooms without installation and testing of a “sensitivity chip.” And the best way to do this is to put students into contact with people, environments, and situations to which they might not otherwise be exposed.

This is not a call for political indoctrination. It’s a call for teaching our students how to develop empathy for people who are unlike them. It’s a call for getting our students out of the classroom and into the communities where they live and study. It’s a call for the infusion of more service-learning opportunities into our classes.

When Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans, the storm’s destruction laid bare the gaps between the “haves” and “have nots” in the city. When Tulane University reopened after dealing with its own flood damage, it decreed that all its students – indisputably among the “haves” — would thereafter perform service in the community as a requirement for graduation. Our own institutions may not have similar requirements, but we can – and I believe we should — build concern for and interaction with our communities into our classes. Journalism and mass communication courses are perhaps better suited than most for application of student skills in the service of community organizations and in response to community needs. We should exploit that advantage — for our students and for ourselves.

How do I make the leap from taking a swipe at a thoughtless segment on a major cable news network to calling for students to storm our communities with service on offer? Here’s the logic: First, if “information is the currency of democracy” then teaching future journalists and communication professionals to learn about and be engaged in their communities can be an inherently political – and hopefully empathy-inducing — act. Second, we all understand the role of framing in the media and we know that the way a story is told not only allocates blame for problems, it limits the range of possible solutions. If we don’t ask students to leave their comfort zones they may not otherwise encounter people different from themselves and may not recognize opportunities to tell stories in new ways. Dearth of exposure is not a recipe for thoughtful reporting or empathy promotion.

Finally, as future journalists and media professionals, our students will bear the burden of helping to restore the professions’ reputation among the American public. Beyond their college careers our students will increasingly be expected to play roles described by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel as investigators, witnesses, role models, empowerers [sic], and facilitators of public debate. Without connections to or curiosity about their communities, our students will be ill-equipped to serve in many of these roles. And a certain degree of empathy is required to perform well in each.

How to teach empathy? Service-learning is an excellent place to start.

Emily T. Metzgar is an associate professor in The Media School @ Indiana University where she also serves as the School’s director for undergraduate studies. She is a member of AEJMC’s Standing Committee on Teaching.

<Teaching Corner

Make the 2020 Election a Teachable Moment

By Marcus Messner
AEJMC Standing Committee on Teaching
Virginia Commonwealth University
mmessner@vcu.edu

 

 

(Article courtesy of AEJMC News, January 2020 issue)

It’s 2020 and this year’s presidential election promises to become one of the hardest fought in the nation’s history. The presidential primaries are about to begin and the road to November will be long with many opportunities for students to get involved.

There will be days when your students will talk about nothing else. So why not make the election a teachable moment in your classes?

Now is a good time to get your colleagues together to make a plan for the fall semester. Here are a few projects that you   can plan on your own or as a team for your school or department:

Get-Out-the-Vote Campaign
Offer a course or class project that designs and carries out a non-partisan campaign to get students to the polls. It’s a great experiential learning opportunity, especially for public relations and advertising students. Put students in the driver seat and let them design campaign materials and social media strategies that will engage their peers.

Start out with a voter registration drive on campus. If students are registered at all, many of them will be registered in their hometowns. They need to either newly register, change their registration or vote absentee. Your campaign can tell them how to do that.

Then turn your attention to the get-out-the-vote effort and go beyond just the horse race. Prepare detailed materials that show the policy positions of all presidential candidates, so that students can make sophisticated decisions at the polls. Focus especially on the issues that are top of mind for your students (a survey can help). If preparing the materials is too time consuming, you can contact one of the many non-profit organizations with voter-turnout operations who are always willing to share their materials.
Also prepare instructions for students on how to get to the polls in your city, if your campus does not have its own polling station. Increase your campaign’s presence on central places around campus on a daily basis between October and November.

Your student affairs unit might have extra dollars to spend for your campaign’s social media advertising during the final days.

Mock Debate
Only very few universities get to host presidential debates with the actual candidates. If yours is not one of the lucky four, it does not prevent you from holding your own mock debate. Put your debate team or communication studies majors in charge of organizing a panel discussion by inviting representatives of the Young Democrats and Young Republicans to debate the policy positions of the presidential candidates on your campus (of course invite third parties representatives as well, if they are available).

Alternatively invite local party politicians to engage in a debate about national issues. It will be a great showcase of what the election is truly about and which choices students face. It will also contribute to a civilized discourse about the election on your campus.

Speaker Series
Bring engaging speakers to your school or department between Labor Day and Election Day. There are many opportunities to bring your students together for speaker events without going through an expensive speaker’s bureau.

Invite some of your alumni, who work in political campaigns or cover politics for a news organization, to talk about their work. You might also have a professor on your faculty who has done so in the past. Ask a historian or a political scientist at your university to bring some perspective on the race unfolding in the fall. Invite international students to discuss difference to elections and political systems in other countries. Hold an open forum with a moderator at which students can share their views.

Election Coverage
Journalism classes can already get a head start by covering the primary election in your state this spring semester. During the fall semester, the general election will be a great testing ground for students to put their reporting skills to use by covering the candidates and the most important issues for voters at your university and in your community.

Partner a journalism class with a local news organization to add student reporting and perspective to their coverage. Let the reporting efforts during the fall culminate in an Election Day project that covers voters at the polls in the morning and provides live updates on the election results in the evening. It’s a great opportunity to give your students a chance to work in a newsroom-like setting and to sharpen all of the skills they learned your previous classes during a breaking news situation.

Creating an engaged campus during a presidential election is a great contribution you can make to our democracy. While the presidential election will likely lead to more political division this year, making it a teachable moment in your classes will not only engage your students, but allow them to have an impact with their coursework by helping their peers make informed decisions at the polls.

<Teaching Corner