RSJ News
Be open to change
08-19-2009
Chris Callahan, founding dean of the Walter Cronkite School at Arizona State, urges RSJ faculty to be change agents.
Sometimes the founding dean of the Walter Cronkite School hesitates before answering his phone. Chris Callahan has received enough calls notifying him that another veteran journalist lost a job.
"This is a scary time," Callahan said. "Scarier than usual."
But the chaos confronting news media has an upside. With it comes an unusual openness to change. In search of new ways of doing news, news professionals are turning to journalism educators for help.
"The industry is enormously open to what we're doing," Callahan said. "They're coming to us for answers and we need to seize that opportunity."
Speaking to Reynolds School faculty at a retreat Aug. 17, Callahan, a former Washington correspondent for the Associated Press, urged journalism educators to be "change agents."
Journalism students are ready for bold, new experiments. Donors who contribute resources to journalism education support its evolution.
In short, there's never been a better time to be teaching journalism.
With its resources -- from facility to faculty -- the Reynolds School needs to think big, Callahan said.
"Think really big," he said. "Carve out areas where you can be better than anyone."
