Eager, enthusiastic faces of students flashed across the screen at the inauguration ceremony of Northwestern University in Qatar (NU-Q), an event held on March 23 in the presence of HH Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned, Chairperson of Qatar Foundation. And all 38 (of which 14 are Qataris and the rest a mix of all nationalities) of them had one strong rather optimistic dream, that of making a mark in the field of journalism and media, right here. A tall claim, some might comment, but buttressed by the strong foundation of Northwestern University and the backing of Qatar Foundation, this dream might soon be a reality.
And all this spins off from the concept of story telling, according to the Dean of NU-Q, John Margolis, "The Middle East is a region rich in the ancient tradition of storytelling and the concept of 'story' is central to the academic programmes we have brought into Education City. Whether in a news article or broadcast, a narrative stage or screen work, our journalism and communication curricula focus on telling a story."
The need for a course to educate aspiring professionals in Qatar, which is establishing itself as a regional centre for journalism and media, has never been stronger, says Margolis.
"Digital communication technologies are transforming how we gather and distribute news, how we share information, how we give expression to our creative spirit and how we connect, influence and govern.
"And it is expertise in all these emerging technologies that we intend to inculcate in the students here."
On how the course intends to demarcate itself from various other programmes in the region, he says, "We have two goals that we will focus on. The first, obviously, is to provide world-class education in journalism and to encourage and guide students to take leadership roles in organisations.
Secondly, we want to be a constructive force in the region in the discussion of important issues, to serve as a catalyst for constructive change in these areas."
The real picture
Journalism though, is not only about classroom study, it is the tension that is pervasive in newsrooms, it is the eye of the edit team to spot a story, the glib questions of an interviewer, catchy headlines and an attractive presentation that attracts the reader or viewer.
Transparency is another virtue that a journalist outlearns fast in a region that preaches press freedom but practices it much less frequently. And if these challenges are not enough, there is the persistence of economics over edit with economics winning the battle, in the end.
So how will the students have a fair idea of all the challenges they are in for?
Richard J Roth, Senior Associate NU-Q, with his huge and varied experience in all areas of reporting and editing, was just the right person to pose this question to.
"We do educate our students on all these. The fundamental way we teach journalism is by practice. We have them do internships; we make them experience the aspects of reporting on day-to-day incidents. For this, we send our students to reputed organisations like Qatar Today or the Gulf Business in Bahrain. They learn to practice what we preach.
"Unlike many other professions, which require a period of working under expertise, journalism requires one to go out into the arena from the day you join.
There is no habituation period where you get a timeframe to fit into the real game of reporting. This is why we want all our students to have a fairly good idea of the newsroom culture.
On transparency, Roth is quite optimistic.
"Change is imminent as we understand from the leadership's vision and from the communications we have had. The country is still in its nascent stage, give it some time and soon all these doubts will be cleared and transparency will be in place. Our students will demand it when they begin to work because that is what we have been teaching them," he says.
Adapting to the region
The Northwestern University in Qatar offers two undergraduate programmes: communication and journalism.
The School of Communication offers a programme in telecommunication, radio, television, film and interactive media technology. The journalism programme, created by the Medill School of Journalism prepares students for careers in print and broadcast news media through journalism and integrated marketing communications.
The courses though had a minor change to make it more compatible for the region.
"The biggest change is in the content of individual courses. We have a quarter system at Northwestern University's Evanston campus of 10 weeks and here it is 15 weeks in a semester.
We just had to reshape though it is essentially the same curriculum. We have added a few tailored lectures pertinent to the media in Middle East. We will need to streamline more but we will do that as we move on," says Dean Margolis.
"There are issues of culture and habit which does spring up but I feel all that will change as the students get educated in a multicultural background.
Like we had a Qatari girl on the cover of our alumni magazine which was disapproved by many, but the girl was adamant and her parents too agreed to it. So things are changing," observes Roth.
The USP
So how different will a journalist from NUQ be from the rest?
"Everyone before he or she graduates will know how to do journalism on paper, on air and online. They all will know how to shoot video, flash programmes, work for newspapers etc.
Everyone will be proficient in everything but they will have one core specialisation in their field of competency and expertise.
"Anybody can cover news but our students have to discover news first. They will have to find stories that matter to the people they are intended for."
A good journalist
Roth has served as Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper at Terre Haute and he was a guest editor in the early days of The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition, now called wsj.com, and hence qualifies as the best person to quiz on the qualities that mark a good journalist.
"Curiosity and critical thinking is the first essential quality. We encourage our students to question everything they see. Honesty and independence are the other two qualities that mark a good journalist."
Emerging media
In an era where newspapers are fast losing their charm, Roth comments on their business models, "In the US, the business models have collapsed because they shifted from being family owned businesses to publicly listed companies and they had to constantly produce more and more revenues for the share holders. This happened during the times of recession. The advent of online media too affected the sales pitch of newspapers."
Newspapers will not go out of business, feels Roth, but they will have to get innovative to be in business.
"We get three daily newspapers in Qatar, while I read a dozen daily online and these I read when I want to and where I want to. And that is the future of the media, the choice of accessing news and stories from around the world at the click of your mouse."
"Naples in Florida had no television station so the papers started posting their news reports on their website. So if all reporters had a webcam they could come back from the scene and post their webcam recording of the event and it can be viewed instantly on the website.
These new forms of expression could be a threat not to newspapers but to televisions. With their huge workforce, newspapers can put them to use and get a major chunk of the population to their websites."
Qatar though, feels Roth, has not yet reached that stage of internet dependency.
"The newspapers here are thriving and their websites are what the US newspapers websites were 10 years ago. We do have a long way to go. They just replicate their print copies with no innovation."
But that will change soon, he feels, with the broadband penetration above 50 percent, internet will get popular as well.
The culture of reading
Magazine reading, though, has not much of a following here and that is entirely due to the absence of a culture of reading, feels Roth.
"If you walk into a bookstore, like Virgin, you find that there are no books for children, which is quite disappointing.
Children have to be guided to inculcate a reading habit. Even that is slowly changing or at least they are being addressed. Bloomsbury is here, and sometime this April, they organised a reading day for kids. You have to teach kids to read, it opens a whole new world of creativity and imagination."
On the newspapers in the region, Roth says, "They seem to be doing a good job there is so much to read in them. But the reporters are just not asking the right questions, questions that a reader would want answered.
For example, there was a report on the retirement age in a leading daily, which said that, it has been extended but the age was not mentioned in the report and that leaves the report incomplete and hence not serving its basic need of informing its readers."
By Sindhu Nair
© Qatar Today 2009
