Journalists should reflect the population

It is important that there are different types of journalists in the world, so that it is not only one viewpoint that is shown in the media. At the Danish School of Media and Journalism it is mainly the same type of journalist student they educate. But at the Mediaschool Bayern in Ismaning they might have found a solution to this problem.

Written by Katrine Eisemann de Almeida

The Mediaschool Bayern is quite different from The Danish School of Media and Journalism in many ways. The length of the education in the German school is 1 year, where In Denmark the length of the education is 4 years. In both schools the students learn by doing, which is very similar.

“They learn the basics in the beginning and later is it very practical” says Andre Wengenroth Chief Producer at The Mediaschool Bayern.

Where in the Danish school the students mainly have courses in a classroom, but when they get an assignment, the students must use what they were just taught in the classroom and have to get out into the real world and do interviews.

Another big difference is that the Danish School of Media and Journalism is only financed through the state, where the Mediaschool Bayern is mainly financed through sponsors, but they still get a certain amount from the state. Which Andre Wengenroth thinks is good, because he thinks it is important that the students are free to do whatever they want, without any restrictions from the state.

Both schools have an entrance process to get in to the school, where students are picked by the school. In the German school it is two days where they select their new students. Whereas in the Danish school it is five different steps to get in, some of them they can do at home and for some they must meet up at the school at a certain day. There is just one problem, that the school in Denmark is facing, and that is to get different types of students to study at their school, so that there are different types of journalists.

But it seems like at Mediaschool they have found a solution for the problem in their entrance process:

“We have been trying to open up for people in physics as well as communication and that works here.” Says Andre Wegenroth.

Maybe this could be an idea to solve the problem at the Danish school, but even though the Mediaschool Bayern has found a solution, it is still a problem in the field says Andre Wegenroth.