Chasing hashtag#25 in the newsroom presents challenges for journalism education. But what are they?

The breathlessness to embrace digital first does not necessarily mean better journalism, better democracy, or better journalism education. This must be borne in mind, as the contours of what constitutes journalism in 2015 keep changing and becoming blurry. The question for journalism educators today is this: To what extent should journalism schools keep pace with the latest trends in the industry, and chase, for example, hashtag#25? The latter is a code concept, developed for this article to encapsulate digital first, incorporating social media, a focus on multi-platforms, and the youth - hence '25'. Should educators abandon teaching the basic elements of journalism; for instance, how to write stories as opposed to producing content? What about classroom reflections on the value of media freedom in a democracy? Today, the latter role of journalism in a democracy is an enormous demand, given the tumultuous pressure and change the industry is undergoing. The article sets the context from the WAN-Ifra newsroom summit of 2014 and deploys empirical data from State of the newsroom South Africa reports for 2013 and 2014, as well as concepts borrowed from theories of radical democracy, to delineate and discuss several of the conundrums faced by journalism educators. The argument here is that journalism educators should chase hashtag#25 with caution.