A Century and a Half of Feuding: And Still We Can’t Decide What a Journalism Education Should Be

Introduction:

1869: “The only place where one can learn to be a journalist is in a great newspaper office.”

1901: “A professor of journalism would be almost as useless as a school.”1923: “There is absolutely no need for a school of journalism at the University…”1987: “Journalism schools are an absolute and total waste of time.”2003: “Journalism is a job, a craft, best learned by doing it… And since working

practioners not people sequestered in intellectual universities, are best suited to teach craft, at best, journalism schools are a necessary evil.”

These five statements span the history of journalism education in America. They

illustrate the continuing arguments over not only who should teach and what should be taught

but if schools of journalism are needed at all.

The first comment came from New York Herald managing editor Frederick Hudson on

hearing Washington University was adding journalism training. (Wingate,1970).1

The second came from publisher Joseph Pulitzer proposing a series of lectures on

journalism (but not courses) at Columbia University (Boylan, 2003). 2

The third statement was an editorial comment in the Saluda, SC, Standard reacting to

the University of South Carolina’s plans by to create a new program. (Brown, 1969).

The fourth comment was from ABC News anchor Ted Koppel in answer to a student’s

question about journalism training. (Dennis, 1988). 3

The last statement was Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson’s reaction to the

announcement of plans to add academic courses to Columbia’s graduate journalism program.

(Samuelson, 2003).

The historical arguments from a century ago over college courses in journalism

splintered into discussions of details: who should teach, what courses should be stressed and

whether journalism was a craft, a trade, a profession or a calling.

The topics have alternately risen to the forefront of discussion and faded into the

background but no consensous has been reached.

1 Media historians consider Hudson’s history, Journalism in the United States, from 1600-1972, to be the authoritative text on the development of American journalism. 2 Pulitzer apparently changed his mind. Two years after this comment he offered an endowment to Columbia to create just such a school.3 Unlike some other network veterans Koppel does have a college degree and an M.A. in Mass Communications Research from Stanford.

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Many of the arguments have been personal opinions voiced by everyone from school

administrators and teachers to news editors and publishers over the last 100 years. Hundreds of

articles have been written in both academic and trade press on what path journalism education

should follow. Little if any early empirical research was done prior to the mid 1960’s except for

surveys which cataloged courses that were offered at various institutions. (Flint, 1924 for

example).

Some arguments over a journalism education have been settled, some sullenly and

others as time and precedence established standards. The earliest journalism schools,

whether begun by practitioners like Walter Williams at the University of Missouri, or by

academics like Willard Bleyer at the University of Wisconsin, agreed that a journalist’s education

must include a wide liberal arts background as well as practical training. (Williams,1929;

Dennis,1998). The proportion of liberal arts to skills courses has, however, continued to be

discussed and adjusted (Editorial,1924; Armstead,1930; Emery & McKerns,1987).

Other established arguments covered a variety of topics. Should women be accepted

into both the profession and be hired as instructors of journalism? Is there a need for additional

training for first radio and then television professionals and now Internet specialists? Is it

necessary to expand journalism research with content of historical examination? Is specialty

research into audience reception and retention and its relationship to mass communication

helpful? (see Turnbull, 1965; Cohen, 2001; Overholser, 2002 for discussions).

Some arguments, however, remain at the forefront of discussion including the need for

journalism schools in the first place.

Journalism Education Arguments

Topic Arguments DatesEducation

vs

Apprenticeship

Journalists need to learn much more than just occupational skills and this is best done in an academic setting.

The news business is best learned in the working newsroom, not in a theoretical, academic setting.

1969 - Present

Academic vs Practitioner

Teachers need academic preparation, be a part of the academic community obtain advanced degrees.

Teachers must have experience in the business, people who know what students will need to get a job.

1924 - Present

General vs

Sequence

A good journalist needs well-rounded training in writing, leave specific medium skills training to on-the-job.

Schools must provide good training in a specific sequence so they can immediately get a job and succeed in their profession.

1950 - Present

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The Arguments The first continuing argument, Education versus Apprenticeship is the original one over

whether journalism should be taught in college at all, or is it a set of skills better learned in the

newsroom?

The second argument centers over who should teach, academically trained professors

who concentrate on critical thinking and theory or experienced news people who “know” what

students need to learn to be good journalists.

The third, more recent argument is over whether a student should get a solid, liberal arts

education with general journalism training for all media or receive specialized, in-depth training

in reporting in a specific media.

Literature Review As noted earlier, until recently there was little empirical research on journalism

education. Most published articles were opinions voiced in both the academic and trade press.

A study of this literature and history is necessary to understand not only how the curricula of

today developed, but also, and more importantly, where it is headed. Courses have been

dropped and added. Entire schools, colleges and departments have been in turmoil as

programs have been discarded, re-invented and revamped. Some schools have retrenched

existing programs while other have re-created themselves in a “convergence” mold.

In investigating the topic, key word searches have included “journalism education”,

“journalism history,” journalist training,” journalism curriculum”, “convergence”, and

“convergence journalism.” Searches were also done on leaders in journalism education and on

articles concerning major journalism programs.

Education versus ApprenticeshipHistoric Arguments

The Newspaper in America began as a mostly political broadside for the educated

gentry who paid a yearly subscription. It was written by one man – the printer.

Benjamin Day’s New York Sun in the 1830’s was different -- aimed at a large, immigrant

audience. Day found it was no longer possible for one printer to collect and write all the stories

in the burgeoning city, he had to hire men to go out, gather facts, and write up reports (Folkerts

& Teeter, 1994). While the popular notion was these reporters were apprentices learning the

trade from a master printer, Hudson noted that most were castoffs from more “respectable”

callings; lawyers, merchants and clergy who had some writing instruction (Hudson, 1968).

Robert E. Lee proposed the first college courses in printing and journalism to be held at

a local print shop while president of Washington University he in 1868. James Melvin Lee

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(1926) notes that Robert E. Lee argued journalism was a proper college-trained profession for

young men “intending to make practical printing and journalism their business in life.” The plan

was met with disdain by college regents who did not consider it a proper course for higher

education. They approved only if it could be done at no cost to the university (Turnbull, 1965.)

Lee’s plan also elicited the first of the quotes that began this article, the New York

Herald’s legendary managing editor Frederic Hudson’s comment “The only place where one can

learn to be a journalist is in a great newspaper office,” (Wingate, 1970). Hudson (1968), in his

definitive Journalism in the United States: From 1690 to 1872, quoted Whitelaw Reid of the New

York Tribune as being in favor of the concept of training, but not in a university. “Such an

establishment as the New York Herald, or Tribune, or Times is the true college for newspaper

students. Professor James Gordon Bennett or Professor Horace Greeley would turn out more

real genuine journalists in one year than the Harvards, the Yales and the Dartmoths could

produce in a generation (Hudson p. 714.)

Contemporary ArgumentsCollege journalism teachers struggled for acceptance as the discussion on the need for

journalism schools continued after the American Association of Teachers of Journalism was

formed in 1924. A survey was conducted by The American Society Newspaper Editors

(Herbert, 1930) but no consensus was reached. Numerous arguments pro and con, from both

editors and teachers appeared in the group’s newly established quarterly publication

(summarized in Emery & McKerns, 1987).

Legendary newspaperman H. L. Mencken (1925) was among those who argued for

journalism training saying “The old time city room, in truth, was a poor school… It was full of

pleasant fellows, but the majority of them were bad journalists, for what they mistook for

professional knowledge was simply a huge accumulation of useless facts.”

The argument over whether journalism could and should be taught in a university

continued. Most voices were and still are personal opinions in both academic and trade journals

(see Allen, 1924; Meyers, 1925; Johnson, 1930, for examples.) Some educators argued

journalism should be a post-graduate curriculum, courses taken after a student’s liberal arts

degree (Johnson, 1930).

Established journalists also weighed in as noted by the earlier quotations from The

Standard on hearing the University of South Carolina was proposing a school of journalism in

1923, Ted Koppel’s answer to a student’s question in 1988 and Samuelson’s condemnation of

plans to add more academic work to Columbia’s graduate journalism curriculum in 2003

indicate.

The original argument, however, has more or less been absorbed into the second

argument as both educators and practitioners continue to discuss what students should spend

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their time on – skills or academic courses as well as if skills courses were needed at all. Many

educators in the 1980’s argued for re-invention of programs using terms like “crisis”,

“crossroads”, (see Dickson, 1996; Deuze, 2001 for examples).

Veteran journalist and former assistant dean at Columbia Carolyn Lewis (1986) called

for a “critical self-examination” of journalism schools saying the journalism taught in universities

“could be learned by a bright high school graduate in eight weeks at a small town weekly

newspaper” and that most universities were populated by professors more concerned with their

egos and perquisites than in serving students.

Other, more recent articles take much the same track calling on schools to abandon

skills courses and concentrate on teaching communications rather than journalism (Brynildssen

et. al., 2002; Cohen, 2001; Christ, 1999).

Academic versus PractitionerHistoric Arguments

Newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer offered Columbia $1 million to establish a school

of journalism in 1903. (He had apparently changed his opinion in two years. As noted earlier,

he had said he preferred occasional lectures but not a true university program.) Two years later

and only after finding out Pulitzer had made a similar offer to Harvard, Columbia accepted.

It took another eight years of arguing over the size and design of a building, who would

control the school, who should be hired, and whether or not Pulitzer’s name would be

associated with the program before the first class was offered. Pulitzer died in 1909 and never

saw the school’s founding (Boylin, 2003).

One of the arguments that delayed the school became the second major, continuing

argument over a journalism education – who should teach. Pulitzer demanded experienced

newspapermen head the school and teach the courses; Columbia insisted on academic

credentials. Pulitzer won. Philadelphia Press editor Talbott Williams would head the school and

the first teachers were the experienced city editor of the New York Times Franklin Matthews,

and Robert Emmet MacAlarney, editor of the Evening Mail (Boylin, p. 34).

Thus the argument was born with the first school of journalism and continues today.

The men who founded programs backed by the industry (Missouri, Columbia, Oregon for

examples) and as part of existing academic programs (Wisconsin as an example) featured

instructors with a wide range of academic backgrounds.

Walter Williams’s daughter S.L. Williams (1929) outlined the founding of the University of

Missouri’s school noting he was an experienced newspaperman who picked veteran editors to

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join him.4 Likewise Boylin (2003) catalogued Columbia’s first director and teachers as

experienced newsmen not academics, and Eric Allen, who built Oregon’s school, was a Seattle

Post-Intelligencer reporter when he was hired to build the department (Turnbull, 1965).

Dennis’ history of journalism education (1998) notes that Willard Bleyer was one of the

few founders of journalism programs with academic training at the University of Wisconsin

(Dennis, 1998.) Bleyer did hire experienced newspaper people but also included academically

trained teachers of journalism history, ethics, theory and research.5

Bleyer was the first to urge graduate degrees in journalism (Emery & McKerns, 1987)

and was an early advocate of post-graduate research into journalism (Official Notices, 1924,

p.66).

Contemporary Arguments The arguments over merits of practitioners versus academics were the topic of many

early articles in the Association of American Schools and Department of Journalism and the

American Association of Teachers of Journalism publications (Reed, 1924; Scott, 1925; Willcox,

1959 as examples). The only research, however, were informal surveys of programs and lists

of teachers.

One example was Leslie Higgenbotham’s (1924) survey of university instruction where

he queried the heads of the existing 14 schools and departments of journalism about the need

for a Ph.D. His “finding”, that most of those who ran departments did not have a Ph.D. and

preferred hiring experienced newspapermen was published as a narrative in the first issue of

the AATJ’s new Journalism Bulletin.6

Higgenbotham’s survey was challenged by other teachers in following editions of the

publication. P.I. Reed (1924) of West Virginia University noted that journalism would remain a

trade until newspapermen were taught by those with higher degrees.

Frank Scott (1925) argued that journalism programs would continue to have to battle for

position in the academic world and for acceptance by newspapers as long as they were skills

programs and that getting a Ph.D. to teach would eliminate the “journalistic trade school” notion.

4 Walter Williams had no college education, he barely finished high school but was a successful newspaper editor and active in the Missouri Press Association when asked to found the program. The Press Association had sponsored individual courses for reporters for several years and was very active in getting the University to create the program.

5 Bleyer was from a newspaper family but had a Ph.D. in English and was teaching elementary college courses in English when he was assigned to teach the first journalism writing course.

6 Higgenbotham was a teacher at the University of Nevada who admitted he did the survey for personal reasons, he was trying to decide whether to pursue and advanced degree himself. He decided not to after learning the majority of those he asked considered a doctorate useful only because it gave the holder a little higher standing in the academic community.

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Editorials in the bulletin argued for approaches, practitioner and academic, saying that

there was no reason why five or ten years of experience in newspapers and an advanced

degree could not be combined (Editorial, 1924).7

One of the first “research” projects into journalism education was presented as an

argument by Vernon Nash (1938) in Journalism Quarterly. He wrote he had talked with

newspapermen in forty states (no list of editors or papers was given) and he offered no

empirical numbers. Nash “summarized” his comments in an imaginary conversation with an

editor who criticized colleges for not recognizing the needs of journalism programs and for not

supplying better equipment and faculties.

The arguments continued through the 1920’s and 1930’s as schools adjusted minimum

teaching requirements although a majority listed a bachelor’s degree and practical experience

(Official Notes, 1924, p. 30). Later the A.A.S.D.J. listed requirements for full professor include a

minimum of five years adequate experience (Murphy, 1932)

By the end of the 1930’s most schools accepted the need of both experience and

advanced degrees and the argument faded (Folks & Teeter, 1994).

In 1973 the American Newspaper Publishers Association and the Association for

Education of Journalists held a three day seminar to discuss the education of newspaper

journalists and the argument was reborn. Richard Gray’s (1974) report on the seminar found

the same points were made as had existed a half-century earlier that both academic and skills

training were needed.

Much of the argument has centered on faculty with advanced degrees but little or no

practical experience. A 1982 survey of journalism faculty found that journalism educators with

Ph.D.’s averaged just over 7 years of actual journalism experience (Stone, 1982).

A similar study in 1988 reported that only 13 of 893 faculty members had no professional

experience and those with a doctorate had a mean of just over 6 years of experience while non-

Ph.D. faculty members averaged 12 years of professional experience (Weaver & Wilhoit, 1988).

Much of the criticism of journalism curricula came from trade publications. Charles-

Gene McDaniel (1982) noted in Editor & Publisher, “It is easier for a “Ph.D ‘communicologist’

with no experience to get a job than it is for an experienced journalism professional.”

Others, including former journalism school dean Ben Bagdikian (1990), were critical of

requiring a Ph.D. faculty. Bagdikian, in a Presstime article, called the requirement “silly”, that it

proved nothing about the holder’s knowledge of quality journalism. Steve Weinburg (1991)

agreed saying that few first-rate journalists hold advanced degrees and those academics with

little experience can not know or teach what students need to learn.7 The editorial is unsigned but probably written by the long-time editor of the Bulletin L.W. Murphy of the University of North Dakota who would later serve a president of the A.A.T.J.

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Everett Dennis (1988) rejected that criticism calling it “a dialogue of the deaf”. He noted

the issues had been debated for half a century with no agreement. David Henley (1992) said

that claims such as Weinburg’s were unfounded, based on anecdotal evidence.

Betty Medsger (1986) re-ignited in the battle in the mid 1980’s when the Freedom Forum

published Winds of Change; Challenges Confronting Journalism Education. Medsger ‘s survey

of educators, journalists and media managers was critical of schools she said had been taken

over by “communication studies scholars”, most with no professional experience.8

Other studies and articles were critical of Medsger’s findings. One A.E.J.M.C. paper

criticized Medsger’s survey for a low response rate and claimed her findings were at odds with

other, similar surveys. It also faulted Medsger for generalizations, simplifying findings and

creating stereotypes of young, inexperienced Ph.D.’s trying to teach skills. The paper noted

many faculty with doctorates taught academic courses and had experience outside of a

newsroom (Fedler et.al. 1987).9

Another example is Stephen Reese’s criticism (1999) that some of Medsger’s claims

were unjustified by the research findings. He pointed out the survey was sponsored by the

Freedom Foundation, an organization closely linked with Gannett, hinting the project was aimed

at moving schools back to a heavily skills-oriented curriculum.

Reese rejected what he called the “false dichotomy” of pitting academic versus

professional, theory versus practice. Glasser (2002) agreed with Reese saying no one

benefited by the “old and tired debate of chi squares versus green eye shades”.

Much of the discussion has taken place in the trade press as newspaper and television

managers weighed in calling for a concentration on “hands-on” training. Vernon Stone has

been ranking journalism schools favored by television news directors for 20 years for the Radio-

Television News Directors Association and notes that schools that provide more skills training

continue at the top of the list (Stone, 1994.) Steve Paterno (1996) lamented the trend away

from journalism toward communications courses in Editor and Publisher.

Duhe and Zukowski, (1997) however found in their study that broadcast managers and

educators generally agreed on the need of a balance of liberal arts and skills courses. Wenger

(2004) noted, in a presentation to the Radio Television News Directors Association, that her

survey found broadcasters and educators both thought writing, reporting and interviewing were

the most important skills and that ethics was the most important non-skill to be taught

8 Medsger’s survey of journalism educators, journalists and media managers found thought journalism schools had been “taken over by communication studies scholars”. She reported 17% of Journalism/Mass Communication faculty had no professional experience and 23% of faculty members under the age of 44 had never worked as full-time journalists. Medsger said she found most of those surveyed rejected the proliferation of teachers with Ph.D. degrees but no experience who she says were incapable of teaching basic or advanced intellectual skills of journalism. 9 This research found 53% those who taught actual journalism skills courses had over 10 years of professional experience and were least likely to have Ph.D.’s.

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journalists. She did, however, find disagreements on how well the two groups thought college

courses were being taught.

One subtopic of this argument has been the balance between general liberal arts

courses and specific journalism courses.

S.L. Williams (1929) says in her history of the University of Missouri school of journalism

that her father, school founder Walter Williams, based his curriculum on one put together by

Harvard President Charles Eliot.10 Walter Williams (1908) himself argued that a journalism

curriculum should be based on liberal arts, quoting Thomas Jefferson when he first proposed a

state university “for all professions and branches leading towards the highest usefulness to the

state.”

Willard Bleyer designed the University of Wisconsin program with three years of general

liberal arts courses and one year of journalism. That plan has been generally adopted and

maintained by virtually every journalism department and school (Turnbull, 1965).

The general liberal arts curriculum was “settled” in 1924 by a joint meeting of the

Association of American Schools and Department of Journalism and the American Association

of Teachers of Journalism (Official Notes, 1925). Those basic requirements of 75% of a

journalist’s education be from liberal arts courses and 25% be in journalism, remain as part of

the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication’s accreditation standards

today (AEJMC, 1996).

Little empirical research into the courses journalism graduates needed to take to

succeed has been done over the years. Most research has been simple surveys of courses

offered by schools (see Luxon,1937, for example.) Many of the early arguments centered on

getting journalism accepted as a true college curriculum (Allen, 1927; Hyde, 1937 for

examples). Leaders, however, still stressed journalism courses were to be taught “on top of” a

wide liberal arts curriculum (Mott, 1940).

The majority of the discussions over the past 30 years has concerned the need to

balance a liberal arts education with skills courses (Blanchard & Christ, 1988, for example).

There has been some disagreement found between educators and professionals as to

which non-journalism courses should take precedence in the curriculum. Martin, et.al., found

that educators ranked liberal arts courses as most needed while broadcasters ranked current

events studies and government at the top (Martin, 2004). Other educators argue journalism

can and should be taught as an academic discipline, not just skills courses. DeBurgh (2003)

called for teaching “transferable skills”, particularly research and composition skills, to help with

later work life. 10 Eliot developed the plan in 1903 when he was trying to get Joseph Pulitzer to fund a journalism school at Harvard rather than Columbia

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General versus SequenceThis most recent argument has been over sequence courses. Should journalism

curricula focus on producing graduates with good, general writing skills and some acquaintance

with specific media requirements? Or should schools concentrate on in-depth training that

produces graduates with polished skills in a single medium?

Historic Arguments As early as 1936 some radio reporting courses were being taught in journalism

departments and schools. In 1939 Emory University’s Dowling Leatherwood proposed

standardizing courses. He listed 14 radio courses at the 30 schools he had contacted. His

proposal was for a separate curriculum with courses teaching specialized skills including live

reporting, newscast delivery, how to write features and interpretive stories, and editorial writing

for radio (Leatherwood, l939). Some of his contemporaries rejected his ideas stating such

courses were appropriate for the speech department and regular journalism writing course

should suffice (Crook, 1995).

By 1942 Mitchell Charnley (1942) reported 755 courses in radio were being taught at

383 schools, suggesting, he said, “education for radio work has an accepted place in American

curricula” (Charnley, p. 376). Standards for courses were formalized by the Council on Radio

Journalism. This group was established jointly by the National Association of Broadcasters and

the American Association of Schools and Department of Journalism in 1944 (Council 1944).

Initially radio and later television journalism classes were added on top of existing print

curriculum. It wasn’t until the 1960’s separate “tracks” were created at schools allowing

students to specialize in broadcasting. Courses included presentation, production, film (later

video) shooting and editing (Crowell, 1958; Dickson & Brandon, 2000).

Contemporary ArgumentsIn the 1980’s some educators began to question the “track” or “sequence” method of

training journalists for different media. The University of Oregon’s School of Journalism looked

at the problem and put out its recommendations, commonly called the “Oregon Project”. It

criticized separate sequence curricula calling them highly fragmented, developed with little

planning and too “industry specific” (Oregon, 1984).

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Academe has placed the argument for general rather that specific media skills training

under the “convergence” label. The academic convergence description is generally the merging

of print, broadcast and Internet information delivery by one journalist who can produce content

for all formats.

However the term “convergence” is little used outside of academe. News outlets use the

terms “partnerships” or “strategic alliances” to denote sharing story ideas, occasional interviews

with a newspaper reporter by a TV station or having a TV reporter write a column for a

newspaper (Silcock & Keith, 2002). Most are considered promotional opportunities for the outlet

(API, 2005).

Duhe, Mortimer and Chow’s (2002) survey of television news directors found nearly nine

out of ten said they were currently practicing a type of convergence. Two out of three said their

activity was limited to providing content for a news web page while 46% percent said they

produced some content for radio and just over 30% indicated the provided some content for a

newspaper.11

Another survey of newspapers found 30% had “partnerships” with TV stations but only a

few were active daily. It noted the media were different in their needs and that historic

competition might be keeping them from doing more than some cross-promotional efforts

(Demo & Spillman, 2001).

Some press organizations track convergence. The American Press Institute list of news

organizations reports of their converged operations. It reveals, however, the vast majority are

simple story idea sharing between co-owned media. Many are simply reading the next day’s

newspaper headlines during a late television newscast, having a television reporter record the

audio for news headlines for a radio station or having a camera in a newspaper newsroom to

interview print reporters on specialty beats such as entertainment or business news (API, 2005.)

Most are clearly better classed as “promotional opportunities” rather than “convergence.”

Even when the outlets are co-owned the cooperation is referred to as “synergy”. Some

studies say that the different media cultures, even in “converged” operations, make full

cooperation forced at best (Singer, 2003.)

Some in academe, however, seem convinced the total convergence of all media is

imminent, that the training for a future reporter must be as a cross-media “content provider”.

(see. Huesca 2000; Geimann, 2001; Paul, 1999 for examples…) Many of these claims come

from current on-line news providers forecasting the death of traditional formats or from seminars

of “new media” professors or practitioners (Reddick & Fickess, 2001, Blanchard & Christ, 1993).

11 Exactly what and how much content was provided and the affiliation of the other outlet was not listed so it is unknown if the web page, radio station or web page co-owned or controlled by the station.

11

These claims are usually qualified with reasoning like “this is where we think things are

going” or they are based on a few, as yet unproven large-market experiments (see Hammond,

2000; Foot, 2002; Singer, 2003, for academic papers; see Hilts, 1998; Fulton, 1996; Thelen,

2002; and Murphy, 2002, for trade press). This view has, however, not only led to creation of

new college courses but the revamping of entire curricula aimed at meeting the perceived future

needs (Barnhart, 1999; Duhe & Tanner, 2004).

Some educators aren’t so sure things need to be changed so dramatically. David Hayes

rejected “conceptual studies on mass media” filled with “a faculty preoccupied with credentials in

place of journalism” (Hayes, 2003).

Dane Clausen (2003), reporting on a Poynter Institute seminar on convergence, said

“convergence is not necessarily inevitable.” He considered the move to training only general

journalists a bad move. “For journalism professors to teach convergence primarily, or even

solely, is to make yet another dangerous, and therefore potentially wasteful, prediction about the

future,” Clausen wrote (Clausen, 2003.)

Many in the business are also not sure convergence of media is either inevitable or

needed. They note time constraints on reporters expected to turn stories in an increasingly

competitive news world hampered by cost and staff cutbacks (Haiman, 2001). Others predict

the old adage of “jack of all trades, master of none” will be the case -- mediocre journalism from

reporters trying to juggle a variety of tasks and platforms (Stone, 2002; Stevens, 2002). Still

other practitioners fear “journalism” will be left behind in the quest for “content providers” (Prato,

1998).

ConclusionDozens of arguments about journalism education that have appeared, been decided,

faded and re-appeared with renewed vigor in hundreds of academic and trade press articles

over the past 150 years. The three main arguments continue to be discussed. None of the

three has been definitively decided although they have morphed into slightly different arguments

with different aims and goals.

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It has generally been affirmed that there is a need for journalism schools. Likewise

educators and practitioners have agreed a mixture of academic and practitioner teachers is

needed to provide both the theoretical, historical, legal and ethical background and the skills

training necessary. Now the focus must be two goals. First is to make sure journalism curricula

are meeting the needs of the student to get a job and be successful in the business. The

second is to insure the needs of the journalism profession are met by equipping those students

with the critical thinking, historical background, societal interaction as well as the journalist skills

the media require.

Additional research is needed to better define industry convergence. The studies must

go beyond the hype that now surrounds the few “fully converged” operations. They also need to

be free of the passionate diatribes from those with vested interests in on-line journalism (both

academic and commercial) as the reasons for major curriculum shifts.

More research is required to identify which skills are really necessary for new journalists

entering both converged and non-converged operations. Special attention must be paid to the

requirements of smaller markets where new college graduates will actually be hired as reporters

and producers.

The third area of study needed is into the actual work-process of new converged

journalists. How much cross-platform work is really done on a regular basis? How intensive is

the involvement in each medium? The question is: can a “backpack journalist” really produce a

high quality story in a variety of media or will the result be a mediocre effort that satisfies none

of them.

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