Editorial

Abstract

We are living through an unusual scenario. The COVID-19 pandemic has caught us flat-footed and put the brakes on a lot of our lifestyle habits that we had taken for granted in a fast-paced, globalized world. As the world copes with this pandemic, the race is on to find a vaccine while people practice social distancing and other lifestyle changes. In the absence of any viable pharmacological solutions, for now, the stress is on behavioural and social modifications that can only help slow the spread of the virus. The COVID-19 lockdown has also contributed to delaying the publication of this issue. I am thankful to the SAGE publication team for ensuring that we still got this issue out in print. The seven peer-reviewed articles in this issue broadly deal with various aspects of journalism education. Ong Sheau Wen, Ihediwa Samuel Chibundu and Siah Poh Chua examine how Malaysian newspapers framed Chinese primary education for a 3-year period (2015–2017) before the 2018 election. They explored if political considerations remained central in mainstream newspapers’ reporting and whether official sources were dominant in shaping public understanding of the issue. They conclude that the proximity of elections had led to a surge in news reporting about Chinese primary education and that there was indeed a variation in reporting strategies employed by Malaysian newspapers, with each newspaper framing Chinese primary education in different ways—ways that aligned with very different interests. Neha Jindal addresses the use of new media by administrators/educators in private and public journalism schools in India and focuses on their willingness to adopt the requisite skill set and display adaptability concerning acceptance of new media and adoption in curriculum, instruction, evaluation and feedback. She concludes,