Weekly Standard: Teach Less Journalism Craft
Jonathan V. Last in an opinion piece in the Weekly Standard writes:
Most people can write a nut graph after 30 minutes of practice, but comparatively few people can explain, say, econometrics, or fluid dynamics, or the history of the French Revolution. Aspiring journalists don’t need trade-craft–they need a liberal-arts education that gives them a base of mastery in actual academic subjects.
He adds:
According to the forthcoming book The American Journalist in the 21st Century, 36.2 percent of journalists with college degrees were journalism majors. If you include journalism-related “communications” majors, the percentage jumps to 49.5. This far exceeds the percentages of the next most common major, English (14.9 percent). History, political science, math and physical science majors–combined–total only 13.7 percent.
But from his point of view there is hope, writing:
Amazingly enough, some J-schools are recognizing this problem and trying to adapt. In May 2005, the Carnegie Corp. and the Knight Foundation partnered with five journalism grad programs (Columbia, Northwestern, UC-Berkeley, USC and Harvard) to launch a $6 million initiative to bring more academics to J-school curriculums. The goal was to get subject-matter instructors from other parts of the university–say, economics professors–and have them teach lessons in their areas to J-school students. The initiative, spearheaded by Carnegie President Vartan Gregorian, has been so well received that last March four more schools signed up.
Columbia’s journalism school has embraced this notion so whole-heartedly that it established an alternate degree, a Master of Arts, in which students select a concentration in one of four disciplines: Politics, Arts & Culture, Business & Economics or Science. “We do the craft, or skills, in house,” explains Columbia J-school Dean Nicholas Lemann of the new program, “and we contract out, or outsource, the substance to other units in the university.”
It seems likely that other graduate programs will follow this lead and that the new emphasis on facts-over-process will eventually filter down to undergraduate programs, too.