Discipline «Editing basics» in Overcoming the Journalism of Illiteracy and Primitivism: the Problem of Mass Media Practice Through the Students Eyes of the Journalism Faculty of KNUKiM

The author is a scientist and professional journalist with wide-ranging experience in practical journalism – studies the affairs state with journalism education in Ukraine, which for the past three decades has not managed to get rid of the Soviet education system rudiments.

From the urgent problems of such education, the author singles out one facet, which shows an alarming trend: Ukrainian journalism is becoming more illiterate, primitive. This applies not only to the language culture but also to the structural, genre, factual, and semantic characteristics of journalism fundamentals – already published texts.

It is about the level of teaching the disciplines of the so-called editorial block, the role of the normative discipline «Editing Basics» in overcoming the journalism of illiteracy and primitivism. Scholastic theories detached from the journalism practice, which were never accepted in practice, came into view.

Instead, the curricula of journalism faculties and departments have reduced the number of subjects the study of which forms the core of a journalist’s professional profile. This has led to the formation of an illiterate journalist-mankurt, who is trained in a variety of manipulative technologies, ready for the money to fulfill the orders of his media owners.

A presented selection of students’ thoughts of the Journalism Faculty of Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts is about the responsibility of journalistic and editorial positions holder in the specifics of the normative course essential aspects «Editing Basics». These texts, according to the author, will serve as valuable and, to some extent, unexpected empirical material for future researchers and journalists. These texts have the eloquent seal of the day. Corruption of the highest echelons of power, judiciary degradation, the systemic crisis of economy and public morality could not but affect the state of Ukrainian university education in general and journalism in particular.