Summary

Mark Goodman is the Knight Chair in Scholastic Journalism concentrating on First Amendment awareness and civic education.

Biography

Professor Goodman is a lawyer and was the executive director of the Student Press Law Center for 22 years where he helped advise student journalists and advisers about legal rights and responsibilities.

Grant Background

The chair will develop and share innovative teaching, be a leader crusading for First Amendment awareness and civic education, the use of news in classrooms and the creation of student media, building a strong Center for Scholastic Media and encouraging diverse students to pursue journalism careers. A significant web presence will help the chair reach journalists across all media. The chair is expected to collaborate widely, including with the Knight Foundation grantees working in this area. Ultimately, this chair should help strengthen student media by improving high school journalism education.

Recent Activities

Released the results of the first comprehensive national Scholastic Journalism Census. The results provided the most detailed and definitive picture of the state of scholastic media in American public high schools ever gathered.

Continued for the fourth year as the presenting sponsor of the Courage in Student Journalism Awards, the most prominent national recognition of high school journalists and their administrators and advisers who have shown outstanding support for the free press rights of teen journalists in the face of difficulty and resistance. The award will be presented at the National Scholastic Press Association/Journalism Education Association National Convention in San Antonio in November.

Expanded the Center for Scholastic Journalism’s online master’s degree program for journalism educators and produced our first graduate. Fourteen different classes will be offered in 2012-13 and 50 students are now taking classes in the program.

Question-and-Answer with Knight Chair

Teaching the profession: What do you do to bring the newsroom into your classroom? How do your students learn about current journalism practices?

Every lesson in my classes is tied to a real world situation, typically one involving student journalists very similar to the students I’m teaching. I find that when I present information in a context that appears directly relevant to my students, they more clearly understand the realities of journalism practice and more readily remember the principles and concepts I’m conveying. They think, “That could happen to me.” I also encourage and facilitate conversations between students and newsroom professionals about how the topics we’re discussing in class impact their work. And finally, we create the maximum number of out-of-classroom opportunities for students to be involved in our enormous student media operation so they can learn through doing.

Media Innovation: Do you think journalism programs should keep up with the quickening pace of change in the industry? How can they? What is your approach?

Of course journalism programs should keep up with industry change. If our programs don’t innovate, we will become irrelevant. At Kent State, we approach change as a key part of our philosophy. Our curriculum is never “finished” but always a work in progress. In my own classes, I incorporate the latest developments in media law and how changing technology and audiences are forcing journalists to approach legal issues differently.