In a time of two wars, global terrorism and precarious diplomatic relations with several rogue leaders, many of the United States’ top journalism programs are still not teaching students how to responsibly cover violence and conflict, according to a recently released report by the International Center for Media and the Public Agenda at the University of Maryland, College Park. The study is the “largest study to date of 106 accredited journalism programs across the United States, and found that three-fourths of schools do not offer stand-alone courses dedicated to teaching students how to cover violence and trauma.”
Dr. Susan Moeller, the study’s co-author and an associate professor at UMD’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism, noted, “The study found that only faculty with prior working-journalism experience felt suffi ciently confi dent to tackle teaching such topics. In fact, faculty who had formerly been journalists themselves were more likely to include modules on how to cover violence or how to interview victims in their classes than their faculty peers who had never worked outside academe.”
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