Next on the agenda: conquering fake news
By Jimmy Magahern | Phoenix Magazine
ith the sitting U.S. president declaring journalists “the enemy of the American people” and dismissing the work of respected outlets like The New York Times and NBC as “fake news” – all while his detractors pine for the next Woodward and Bernstein to untangle a mass of White House scandals even Deep Throat would choke on – it is, to say the least, an interesting period to be a college journalism major.
“In a lot of ways, I think the era that we’re in right now is the most exciting – and, I would argue, the most important – time in the history of journalism,” says Christopher Callahan, dean of Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
For the veteran newsman, who served as an Associated Press correspondent in the 1980s before moving into higher education, that excitement is coupled with the reality that his school now plays an outsized role in Valley media.
