The document discusses several approaches for journalism education programs to take regarding various topics. For storytelling, it recommends better defining it, considering whether it should be required or elective, increasing curriculum sharing, and gathering resources. For data journalism, it suggests teaching basic skills of finding and visualizing open data, as well as more advanced analysis. For PR and spin, it advises transparency on the journalism/PR relationship, raising awareness of PR influence, and teaching PR techniques without being used by PR.

1. Syndicate 1b – How to cope with spin
• Make your institution’s approach towards the borderline between PR and
journalism education transparent and release a code of ethics explaining
to students, faculty and sponsors your position on education in this field.
• Raise your journalism student’s awareness for the fact that they cannot
avoid the contact and confrontation with PR and spin work, because all
organizations have communication functions.
• Teach your journalism students not to see PR professionals as
enemies, because they are interdependent parts of the public sphere.
• Teach the mechanisms and methods of PR and spin work, in order to make
students aware of its hidden influence on agenda setting, framing, priming
and storytelling.
• Train the students applying different didactical approaches, in order to
train them how to use PR, and not to be used by PR professionals.

2. Syndicate 2a – Data-journalism
Basic skills (in existing course)
• To empower our students and offer them a chance to add value
to their reports to increase their capacity to search, find and
check numbers in already existing open databases,
• To cooperate with IT guys to translate them in the most
common language, visualize them in simple and beautiful
graphics and share them through exciting stories using free tools
who are already available online.
Advanced skills (in new course)
• Digging into social patterns analysis, exploring more complex
statistics equation, matching huge sets of databases
• Building their own references with design and graphs.

3. Syndicate 2b - Storytelling
• Storytelling needs to be better defined (like entrepreneurship). The word
applies to so many topics and approaches and gets taught in so many
different ways. It’s confusing for journalism students.
• There are different ideas about whether storytelling should be required or
elective. The major issue in teaching storytelling is time. Narrative takes
time and resources.
• There needs to be much more curriculum sharing so that there is less
overlap of what is being taught and so that teachers within the same team
know what their colleagues are teaching. We recommend that there is a
section about curriculum sharing at the next WJEC.
• There is a large base of knowledge about storytelling available as a
resource that teachers and students can draw on. It would be good to
gather a long list of those resources to be shared among those who teach
storytelling so the teaching of it is less ad-hoc.
• Regarding sharing best-practices cross-culturally, it is agreed that there are
too few scholarly studies on the different approaches on storytelling
around the world (in a journalistically-related way). It is recommended
that this is a topic at the next WJEC.

4. Syndicate 3a – Young journalists on
global issues
• Global reporting should be taught as an approach, and a mindset; it
is not about reporting on specific places. It is
collaborative, inclusive, connected and self-reflective. It challenges
norms and stereotypes.
• Educators should expose their students to other realities. There are
many ways to do this – such as travel, online technologies, and
having a diverse student or staff body.
• Educators should encourage international collaboration as a core
element of journalism, and facilitate it wherever possible.
• The journalism curriculum should be global throughout. In our
interconnected world, global reporting cannot be considered a
specialism.
• Approaches to, and experiences of education on global reporting
should be shared through a global network. The WJEC would be an
ideal ‘host’ for this.

5. Syndicate 3b – Reporting Europe
1) Create interest in the European level. Experience Europe is better than
studying it. Contacts with correspondents, lobbies and local agencies are
more efficient than visiting a parliament to increase interest in Europe.
2) Intercultural competences are the starting point to deal with Europe. It is
about being aware of your own culture and to deal with cultural differences.
3) Specialized courses on European reporting must encourage the skills of
entrepreneurship for their students. The future is for those students who are
able to cover specific news and find their sources in Europe (other countries
and EU institutions)
4) Social media and new apps provide new opportunities to find European
news and contacts.
5) Language skills are needed. As Europe is more than EU
institutions, students must be able to communicate with other cultures and
not only deal with the official documents.

6. Syndicate 4a - Empowerment through
information and media literacy
• First, educator should not only know the target students’ media habits
(user, consumer, reader or audience.
• We should teach students how to de-construct the media messages
coming from different kinds of sources so that they can realize and analyze
the ideological, cultural, ethnic, nationalist, propagandist or corporate
biases.
• Our approach should be based on the target student’s level of relationship
with the media and not be ethnocentric. We need empiric data to
understand different media usage in different countries.
• We must be active social media user and have competence and
qualification in social media usage, so that we can teach new media skills
and criticism.
• We should encourage our students to make their own media so that they
can produce better information and be better communicators than the
others.

7. 4a
Recommendation: Media literacy education is becoming
so important in an age of information flow. Journalism
students should be aware of
misinformation, disinformation, deception and
propaganda coming from the different kinds of media
sources. Right to get the “truth” about the world events
should be a human right. Trust in journalism and news
media is in decline in many countries. That’s
why, first, journalism students should know about the
basics and purpose of journalism and then be responsible
and accountable about the information they
share, (re)produce and disseminate through the
social/traditional media channels.

8. Syndicate 4b – Young people and the
news
• There needs to be relating and bridging of real life to social media of young
people for stimulating and attracting their interest in news.
• Look for opportunities to diversify different opinions of young people;
particularly their expectations of Facebook as a site of ‘friends’. This is also
important for ethics.
• Benefits of research and history to create context to enhance process and
product.
• Create environment of projects and games for content to enhance pedagogy.
• Use the benefits of distance learning, online learning and open education
programs for those students who can not easily access.
• To create more engagement, positive and solution oriented content attracts
young people.
• Use of documentaries can be also helpful.
• Benefit from interest areas of young people, such as entertainment and
sports, to create links to other issues and concepts.
• It is important to build and recognize identities for fragmented communities.

9. Syndicate 5a – Journalism in a network
society
• Concept of the Network Society. There is value to teaching theories about both
fields and networks. A theoretical base will help the student (and journalist) to
understand the function of networks and the roles we play within them. You use
the network and the network uses you. Recommendation: Integration of this
concept in all courses, in much the same way we urge the teaching of ethics across
the curriculum.
• Complexity. We live in a complex society. Knowledge about networks can help
journalists make complexity comprehensible. Journalism is not about making
complex issues simple, rather is to make complexity understandable. The network
is a tool to discover, explore and explain.
Recommendation: In this context we need to rethink the concept that balance is
presenting both sides and that the sides are equal.

10. Syndicate 5a – Journalism in a network
society
• Citizenship and Democracy. The network empowers everyone to ”commit acts of
journalism” and contribute to the process of being an informed and active citizen. Using
network is effective and powerful ways to work for democracy.
Recommendations: Teach the concepts and practices that the network enables
collaborative actions towards holding institutions to account.
• Life-long learning. There are many different ways to be journalist and many different
ways to do journalism. The skills and tools will continue to change. Technology and
innovation are essential to success in a network society. Take risks.
Recommendation: Teach journalism as a space for enquiry and experimentation. Equip
students and alumni with an understanding that craft is perfected over time and that
life-long learning is vital.
• Real virtuality. Because many students are embedded on the digital network and often
are uncomfortable with personal encounters, they don’t always understand the value of
”off-network” experience.
Recommendations: Journalism educators should give students the tools and skills for
”verification of the real.” For example, teaching students the importance of directly
observing events and people. Students need to bear witness.

11. Syndicate 5b – Citizen journalism and
civic journalism
• Promote a collaborative spirit within a team and between citizens and journalists.
This entails an attitude of openness, transparency and not rushing (taking your
time) when doing citizen/civic journalism. It also means students need to go out
into the real communities and meet/work/communicate with real people - and
recognize that the public may not see the practice of journalism the same way that
journalists do.
• Familiarize the students with the theory in civic and public journalism and embed
the research in practice. Teach students to analyse existing participatory practices
and learn from this.
• Pay attention to ethical guidelines for the use of social media and ethics of
community engagement. The use of social media during a journalism production
will vary from beginning to end (from crowdsourcing, publicizing and from simple
to very complex projects).
• Teach students conceptual tools to understand the dynamics of communities in
addition to the skills to facilitate community engagement. And make students
aware of their own and potential networks and communities.
• Inspire faculty and students to think and act entrepreneurially, because so many
projects of this type will be start-ups

12. Syndicate 6a – Shifting goals of
journalism education
• Developing entrepreneurship; including project
management ability, and to identify and handle change.
• Encouraging the students to continue thinking innovatively
and creatively.
• Developing capacity building for strategic & craft
competences in a world, where the journalist is moving
from gatekeeper to sense-maker.
• Enhancing the ongoing professional development for
educators. Educating the educators, and engaging different
players (students, trainers and educators).
• Continue prioritizing the ethical Implications
(plagiarism, fact checking, verifying sources, critically
analyzing the sources, while considering local settings)

13. Syndicate 6b – Role perceptions and
professional values worldwide
1. The roles of journalists and functions of journalism in society should be
taught and researched as a central element in journalism
education, taking into account the cultural and social contexts
2. The dynamic nature of professional roles should be recognized in
journalism education and be the subject of continuing conversation
among relevant stakeholder –
educators, practitioners, researchers, civil society and industry
3. Journalism education should build upon universal values such as truth-
seeking and public service as well as respecting human values as
articulated international law
4. Journalism education should promote journalistic practices that
emphasize diversity, pluralism and multiculturalism in the
local, national and global contexts
5. Journalism education should promote professional roles that are
senstitive to issues of inequality, poverty and deprivation
among, between and within nations