Stacey Woelfel spent 35 years on the faculty of the Missouri School of Journalism.
And for 24 years, he was the news director for KOMU, the University of Missouri-owned NBC affiliate for central Missouri.
News Blues does accept submissions for Guest Commentaries, but we reserve the right to publish or edit them. Send your commentary to Paul@NewsBlues.com
What I’ve Learned During 40 Years in Journalism Education
You see, it’s often the professors who are learning more than the students.
I showed up early to work on Monday, June 16, 1986.
I remember it clearly because it was my first day of work in my new job. I was the newest instructor on the faculty at the Missouri School of Journalism, serving as the executive assignment editor (yes, that was really the title) at KOMU-TV. That means that, as of yesterday, I’ve been on the faculty at Mizzou for 40 years. Now, some of you may be thinking, “Wait, didn’t you retire a few years ago?” I actually semi-retired, moving from full-time on Sept. 1, 2021 to part-time on Sept. 2, 2021, which I’ve been ever since. I’ve had a lot of titles over these last forty years. Academically, I was an instructor, associate professor, professor and now a professor emeritus. In the newsroom, I was executive assignment editor, assistant news director and news director, along with being the founding director at the school’s Murray Center for Documentary Journalism. Now, in addition to still being on the faculty as a professor emeritus, I’m officially on the payroll as an adjunct, not teaching in a traditional sense, but coaching students on improving their work to land the best jobs and setting up meetings with employers who want to hire them.
Over my 35 years of active teaching, I estimate I personally taught a little more than 3,000 students. That may be a lower number than you would expect for that many years, but my classes were always blissfully small. I typically had no more than 25 students in a class. Sometimes, it was only a dozen or so. Teaching to a group that size—rather than giant lecture halls holding hundreds of students—meant I was able to have a much more meaningful teaching relationship with each student. I got to know them as individuals, could figure out what they needed to get from their educations and kept it all on first name basis. I want to think I taught them a lot along the way. Most went on to successful careers in journalism. I like to say I can drop into any city in America with local TV stations, turn on the news and see a former student on the air. That mostly true and one of the most gratifying things about my career choices. I can see the things that I taught them being put to use right there on television.
But the thing most people outside of academia don’t realize is that, while these students are sitting in front of us soaking up the wisdom we’re imparting in class, we’re quietly learning things about them. Some of these things make sense when you think about them. Classroom teaching made me better at organizing my thoughts and being clear with my messaging. Newsroom teaching—the most enjoyable and effective part of my job—included working to eliminate the flaws in student writing. That made me a better writer. Likewise, working with student reporters to plug the reporting holes in their stories made me better at reporting. But there’s another kind of learning a professor can do—especially if teaching for decades. I’ve witnessed how students have evolved over the past 40 years. Changing generations mean changing skills and interests. Here are a few things I’ve learned about how young journalists have changed.
Young journalists used to be interested in reporting; now they’re interested in storytelling.
My generation of journalists (late-stage Boomers) were often drawn to journalism by Watergate. As a teenager I marveled at how the work of good journalists could bring down a bad president. I wanted to be part of that system so I went to journalism school to learn how to do it. Gen X students had much of the same drive, not from Watergate but from the other good work they saw journalists doing as they watched the evening news with their families and read the local newspaper every day. All of these students entered journalism to be reporters—to dig up facts and report them.
Today, few—if any—students entering journalism school watch the news every night or read the local paper on a regular basis.
As paradoxical as that sounds, they’re drawn to journalism without being consumers of journalism—at least at the level of previous generations. Now, I know some of you reading this are Gen Z journalists and you would argue that you consume news every day. But you’re the rare exception, trust me. When I ask current students why they want a career in TV news, they often have trouble articulating it. They can’t name one driving force that moved them in this direction. But looking at all the answers I have heard in aggregate, I can tell that it’s a desire to tell stories within an organized audience system. It’s not that they want to have their faces on TV. They can get far more fame with a middling social media presence than they can on local TV. It seems to me they want a steady job that allows them to tell stories—and be paid for it. That’s more secure than trying to make a go on social media. Many of them come from high school journalism programs where they could see well-told stories make a difference, which helps solidify their desire to do more.
Young men and women used to be similar in terms of maturity; now young women are far more mature than young men.
We’ve always known that, in the early years of life, girls mature faster than boys. Educators will urge parents to start a girl in kindergarten a bit early if the calendar allows. But those same educators will caution against starting a boy early, instead recommending he join the next year’s cohort when he’s more mature and can handle school better. At the college level, that difference used to be less obvious. When I first started teaching, women and men seemed fairly even in their maturity levels. But that parity is gone. As each new generation arrived in my classroom, I could see the women steadily gaining in maturity, while the men were falling behind. This was apparent in how each gender approached assignments, interacted with peers and planned for career and life ahead. I would now estimate there is, on average, a five to eight year gap in maturity between college women and college men. Individuals will vary, of course, but this is being observed across all disciplines, not just journalism. It may explain why the TV news profession is now so dominated by women in all roles, as women have the planning and drive to seek out and get the jobs—while the men are still way back at the starting gate.
Young journalists used to be great at talking to strangers; now they find it difficult to strike up face to face conversations.
Every semester I taught my introductory Documentary Reporting course I made an assignment for students to do long, detail-oriented, on-camera interviews. I saw this as an essential skill for documentary journalists—and frankly, for every journalist. The assignment was always the same: find a subject matter expert in a field of your choosing and do a lengthy (30-40 minute) interview with the expert on that person’s given field. These interviews were class projects only—they would not be part of an actual documentary or go on the air anywhere. Everyone would nod as I made the assignment and I could see the wheels start to turn as they thought about what subject they wanted to explore. But then, after class, at least one student would come up to me to ask, “Do we actually have to do this interview in person, or can we just email them?” This happened every single semester I taught the course. It seems that having one’s social life entirely revolve around one’s phone has stunted development when it comes to talking to strangers. And that’s one of the skills that’s most essential to reporters—the ability to walk up to someone you don’t know and start a conversation. This has become a difficult skill for most of today’s students to master. They’re VERY uncomfortable at approaching people face to face.
Young journalists used to be masters at attention to detail; now they too often miss the small but important stuff.
When I was a student at the Missouri School of Journalism, I quickly learned a single fact error in a story would lead to a failing grade for my story. Getting the details right became our first goal as journalists. Other Boomer students and the Gen Xers that followed us all shared this common goal—to get absolutely everything correct each and every time. Then came the Millennials and an end to attention to detail. Millennial students were—and I know this word is going to hurt if you were one of them—sloppy when it came to details. These were often “small” errors that didn’t change the meaning of a story, but showed all the same that the reporter wasn’t focused on detail. These errors became common among student journalists and then in the mainstream as these students entered the workforce. As the 20th century drew to a close, the audience began to see mistakes on the air everywhere. This was the impact of the Millennial generation, with its helicopter parents and overworked teachers. My perception is that later Millennials and Gen Z seem to have battled back to put more attention on detail, so perhaps we’re getting back to a zero-tolerance standard in our newsrooms.
Young journalists used to be excellent at spelling, punctuation and grammar; now they show weakness across every aspect of writing.
In the same vein as the errors in stories, we’ve seen a big decline in writing skills, especially around the mechanics of writing. Journalism students have always been among the best in their cohort at writing. I believe that is still the case, meaning the overall level of writing skill among current students in other disciplines must be quite low. Poor spelling, grammar and writing skills often come from a lack of reading. It makes sense that the act of reading will make a people better at their own writing. Many current journalism students do most of their reading in small, short stints online. They’re not as frequently burying themselves in lengthy novels or nonfiction works as was once more common.
Add to that what appears to be less of a focus on the basics of writing in elementary and secondary school (the broad geographic draw of the Missouri School of Journalism brings in students from every state so I’ve seen that skills vary widely by state: students from Minnesota still have impeccable writing skills, those from Texas, not so much). This downward spiral of writing skills has meant more college classroom time taken up teaching what should have been learned years earlier and more newsroom editing time focused on trying to get pieces ready for air and publication.
Young journalists used to struggle with capturing good video; now they’ve been raised on video and take to it naturally.
I can remember an international student I had many years ago who shot absolutely abysmal video. Out of focus, blue, shaky, you name it, he had it. When I confronted him about why it was so bad, he explained he had never seen television before arriving at Mizzou to enter our master’s program. He was truly a beginner (and did eventually get pretty good at shooting video). In contrast, today’s students have been immersed in video since birth. The know what it should look like and can be quick studies to start making good video in a horizontal format (they’re used to vertical video from their phones). Getting them to shoot matched action sequences and to think about the language of video in their stories takes a bit more work, but the starting point to teach these more advanced concepts and skills is at a higher level than ever before.
Young journalists used to be awkward on camera; now they use the skills they learn on social media to be natural communicators.
We can thank social media for making everyone into an on-camera performer. Boomers and Gen X were often awkward on camera (I count myself among the most awkward), but Millennials and Gen Z are swimming in familiar waters when we ask them to go on camera. Likewise, the ability to go live comes pretty naturally to most students now, having done live “broadcasting” on their social media platforms. We now find ourselves spending less time teaching the basics of performance and more about what to include in the limited time we have on the air.
Young journalists used to bring a youthful enthusiasm to their work—and they still do.
For forty years, this has always been the best part of the job. When I was a news director, other NDs would often ask me how I was able to stand having all those beginners in my newsroom all the time. My reply was always the same: first, I enjoyed helping beginners find their footing and get started in the business; and second, everyone in my newsroom really wanted to be there every time they worked a shift. Compare that to other newsrooms, often filled with people who no longer like their jobs but don’t have the courage to quit and go do something else. People like that can make everyone around them miserable. But my young journalists were excited to be in the newsroom, wanted to make every shift one in which they would improve and were open to my feedback. This is undoubtedly the best thing I’ve experienced over the past four decades. The students’ endless enthusiasm and desire to learn has rubbed off on me, making me just as enthusiastic to teach as they are to learn.
None of this is meant to come off as one of those “things were better in my day” rants from an old man. These observations come from decades of caring about these these issues and paying attention to what was changing. It was my job to teach these kids what they were lacking and to try to prepare them for what would be expected of them in their careers. I like to think that I usually succeeded, though I know that occasionally I did not. Ultimately, all I witnessed with my students can help explain what all of us are seeing in the media today. It’s more or less impossible to change the direction of entire generations. But a long view like I’ve been able to experience can help us understand what we see happening.
I’ve been a professional journalist since 1981, a college-level educator since 1986 and someone with an opinion I always think someone else wants to hear since 1959. These are my reflections, musings and rants on the state of journalism today.
- Guest Commentary
June 22, 2026What I’ve Learned During 40 Years in Journalism Education
By Paul Greeley
NOTE: This is from Stacey Woelfel’s Substack column, The Last Editor by Stacey Woelfel.
Stacey Woelfel spent 35 years on the faculty of the Missouri School of Journalism.
And for 24 years, he was the news director for KOMU, the University of Missouri-owned NBC affiliate for central Missouri.
News Blues does accept submissions for Guest Commentaries, but we reserve the right to publish or edit them. Send your commentary to Paul@NewsBlues.com
What I’ve Learned During 40 Years in Journalism Education
You see, it’s often the professors who are learning more than the students.
I showed up early to work on Monday, June 16, 1986.
I remember it clearly because it was my first day of work in my new job. I was the newest instructor on the faculty at the Missouri School of Journalism, serving as the executive assignment editor (yes, that was really the title) at KOMU-TV. That means that, as of yesterday, I’ve been on the faculty at Mizzou for 40 years. Now, some of you may be thinking, “Wait, didn’t you retire a few years ago?” I actually semi-retired, moving from full-time on Sept. 1, 2021 to part-time on Sept. 2, 2021, which I’ve been ever since. I’ve had a lot of titles over these last forty years. Academically, I was an instructor, associate professor, professor and now a professor emeritus. In the newsroom, I was executive assignment editor, assistant news director and news director, along with being the founding director at the school’s Murray Center for Documentary Journalism. Now, in addition to still being on the faculty as a professor emeritus, I’m officially on the payroll as an adjunct, not teaching in a traditional sense, but coaching students on improving their work to land the best jobs and setting up meetings with employers who want to hire them.
Over my 35 years of active teaching, I estimate I personally taught a little more than 3,000 students. That may be a lower number than you would expect for that many years, but my classes were always blissfully small. I typically had no more than 25 students in a class. Sometimes, it was only a dozen or so. Teaching to a group that size—rather than giant lecture halls holding hundreds of students—meant I was able to have a much more meaningful teaching relationship with each student. I got to know them as individuals, could figure out what they needed to get from their educations and kept it all on first name basis. I want to think I taught them a lot along the way. Most went on to successful careers in journalism. I like to say I can drop into any city in America with local TV stations, turn on the news and see a former student on the air. That mostly true and one of the most gratifying things about my career choices. I can see the things that I taught them being put to use right there on television.
But the thing most people outside of academia don’t realize is that, while these students are sitting in front of us soaking up the wisdom we’re imparting in class, we’re quietly learning things about them. Some of these things make sense when you think about them. Classroom teaching made me better at organizing my thoughts and being clear with my messaging. Newsroom teaching—the most enjoyable and effective part of my job—included working to eliminate the flaws in student writing. That made me a better writer. Likewise, working with student reporters to plug the reporting holes in their stories made me better at reporting. But there’s another kind of learning a professor can do—especially if teaching for decades. I’ve witnessed how students have evolved over the past 40 years. Changing generations mean changing skills and interests. Here are a few things I’ve learned about how young journalists have changed.
Young journalists used to be interested in reporting; now they’re interested in storytelling.
My generation of journalists (late-stage Boomers) were often drawn to journalism by Watergate. As a teenager I marveled at how the work of good journalists could bring down a bad president. I wanted to be part of that system so I went to journalism school to learn how to do it. Gen X students had much of the same drive, not from Watergate but from the other good work they saw journalists doing as they watched the evening news with their families and read the local newspaper every day. All of these students entered journalism to be reporters—to dig up facts and report them.
Today, few—if any—students entering journalism school watch the news every night or read the local paper on a regular basis.
As paradoxical as that sounds, they’re drawn to journalism without being consumers of journalism—at least at the level of previous generations. Now, I know some of you reading this are Gen Z journalists and you would argue that you consume news every day. But you’re the rare exception, trust me. When I ask current students why they want a career in TV news, they often have trouble articulating it. They can’t name one driving force that moved them in this direction. But looking at all the answers I have heard in aggregate, I can tell that it’s a desire to tell stories within an organized audience system. It’s not that they want to have their faces on TV. They can get far more fame with a middling social media presence than they can on local TV. It seems to me they want a steady job that allows them to tell stories—and be paid for it. That’s more secure than trying to make a go on social media. Many of them come from high school journalism programs where they could see well-told stories make a difference, which helps solidify their desire to do more.
Young men and women used to be similar in terms of maturity; now young women are far more mature than young men.
We’ve always known that, in the early years of life, girls mature faster than boys. Educators will urge parents to start a girl in kindergarten a bit early if the calendar allows. But those same educators will caution against starting a boy early, instead recommending he join the next year’s cohort when he’s more mature and can handle school better. At the college level, that difference used to be less obvious. When I first started teaching, women and men seemed fairly even in their maturity levels. But that parity is gone. As each new generation arrived in my classroom, I could see the women steadily gaining in maturity, while the men were falling behind. This was apparent in how each gender approached assignments, interacted with peers and planned for career and life ahead. I would now estimate there is, on average, a five to eight year gap in maturity between college women and college men. Individuals will vary, of course, but this is being observed across all disciplines, not just journalism. It may explain why the TV news profession is now so dominated by women in all roles, as women have the planning and drive to seek out and get the jobs—while the men are still way back at the starting gate.
Young journalists used to be great at talking to strangers; now they find it difficult to strike up face to face conversations.
Every semester I taught my introductory Documentary Reporting course I made an assignment for students to do long, detail-oriented, on-camera interviews. I saw this as an essential skill for documentary journalists—and frankly, for every journalist. The assignment was always the same: find a subject matter expert in a field of your choosing and do a lengthy (30-40 minute) interview with the expert on that person’s given field. These interviews were class projects only—they would not be part of an actual documentary or go on the air anywhere. Everyone would nod as I made the assignment and I could see the wheels start to turn as they thought about what subject they wanted to explore. But then, after class, at least one student would come up to me to ask, “Do we actually have to do this interview in person, or can we just email them?” This happened every single semester I taught the course. It seems that having one’s social life entirely revolve around one’s phone has stunted development when it comes to talking to strangers. And that’s one of the skills that’s most essential to reporters—the ability to walk up to someone you don’t know and start a conversation. This has become a difficult skill for most of today’s students to master. They’re VERY uncomfortable at approaching people face to face.
Young journalists used to be masters at attention to detail; now they too often miss the small but important stuff.
When I was a student at the Missouri School of Journalism, I quickly learned a single fact error in a story would lead to a failing grade for my story. Getting the details right became our first goal as journalists. Other Boomer students and the Gen Xers that followed us all shared this common goal—to get absolutely everything correct each and every time. Then came the Millennials and an end to attention to detail. Millennial students were—and I know this word is going to hurt if you were one of them—sloppy when it came to details. These were often “small” errors that didn’t change the meaning of a story, but showed all the same that the reporter wasn’t focused on detail. These errors became common among student journalists and then in the mainstream as these students entered the workforce. As the 20th century drew to a close, the audience began to see mistakes on the air everywhere. This was the impact of the Millennial generation, with its helicopter parents and overworked teachers. My perception is that later Millennials and Gen Z seem to have battled back to put more attention on detail, so perhaps we’re getting back to a zero-tolerance standard in our newsrooms.
Young journalists used to be excellent at spelling, punctuation and grammar; now they show weakness across every aspect of writing.
In the same vein as the errors in stories, we’ve seen a big decline in writing skills, especially around the mechanics of writing. Journalism students have always been among the best in their cohort at writing. I believe that is still the case, meaning the overall level of writing skill among current students in other disciplines must be quite low. Poor spelling, grammar and writing skills often come from a lack of reading. It makes sense that the act of reading will make a people better at their own writing. Many current journalism students do most of their reading in small, short stints online. They’re not as frequently burying themselves in lengthy novels or nonfiction works as was once more common.
Add to that what appears to be less of a focus on the basics of writing in elementary and secondary school (the broad geographic draw of the Missouri School of Journalism brings in students from every state so I’ve seen that skills vary widely by state: students from Minnesota still have impeccable writing skills, those from Texas, not so much). This downward spiral of writing skills has meant more college classroom time taken up teaching what should have been learned years earlier and more newsroom editing time focused on trying to get pieces ready for air and publication.
Young journalists used to struggle with capturing good video; now they’ve been raised on video and take to it naturally.
I can remember an international student I had many years ago who shot absolutely abysmal video. Out of focus, blue, shaky, you name it, he had it. When I confronted him about why it was so bad, he explained he had never seen television before arriving at Mizzou to enter our master’s program. He was truly a beginner (and did eventually get pretty good at shooting video). In contrast, today’s students have been immersed in video since birth. The know what it should look like and can be quick studies to start making good video in a horizontal format (they’re used to vertical video from their phones). Getting them to shoot matched action sequences and to think about the language of video in their stories takes a bit more work, but the starting point to teach these more advanced concepts and skills is at a higher level than ever before.
Young journalists used to be awkward on camera; now they use the skills they learn on social media to be natural communicators.
We can thank social media for making everyone into an on-camera performer. Boomers and Gen X were often awkward on camera (I count myself among the most awkward), but Millennials and Gen Z are swimming in familiar waters when we ask them to go on camera. Likewise, the ability to go live comes pretty naturally to most students now, having done live “broadcasting” on their social media platforms. We now find ourselves spending less time teaching the basics of performance and more about what to include in the limited time we have on the air.
Young journalists used to bring a youthful enthusiasm to their work—and they still do.
For forty years, this has always been the best part of the job. When I was a news director, other NDs would often ask me how I was able to stand having all those beginners in my newsroom all the time. My reply was always the same: first, I enjoyed helping beginners find their footing and get started in the business; and second, everyone in my newsroom really wanted to be there every time they worked a shift. Compare that to other newsrooms, often filled with people who no longer like their jobs but don’t have the courage to quit and go do something else. People like that can make everyone around them miserable. But my young journalists were excited to be in the newsroom, wanted to make every shift one in which they would improve and were open to my feedback. This is undoubtedly the best thing I’ve experienced over the past four decades. The students’ endless enthusiasm and desire to learn has rubbed off on me, making me just as enthusiastic to teach as they are to learn.
None of this is meant to come off as one of those “things were better in my day” rants from an old man. These observations come from decades of caring about these these issues and paying attention to what was changing. It was my job to teach these kids what they were lacking and to try to prepare them for what would be expected of them in their careers. I like to think that I usually succeeded, though I know that occasionally I did not. Ultimately, all I witnessed with my students can help explain what all of us are seeing in the media today. It’s more or less impossible to change the direction of entire generations. But a long view like I’ve been able to experience can help us understand what we see happening.
I’ve been a professional journalist since 1981, a college-level educator since 1986 and someone with an opinion I always think someone else wants to hear since 1959. These are my reflections, musings and rants on the state of journalism today.
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