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Closing J schools.

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Drip, Jul 15, 2009.

  1. bumpy mcgee

    bumpy mcgee Well-Known Member

    "well-rounded education?" You mean taking badminton, music appreciation and intro to rpta doesn't help a journalism major?
     
  2. RickStain

    RickStain Well-Known Member

    We don't have to *discourage* them. But we don't have to shovel cheap loans down their throats either.

    Maybe it was my fault, but being the first in my family to go straight to college from high school, I felt like as long as I was going to college, I was doing the right thing for my financial future. I never really sat down and did a cost-benefit analysis, and now I kind of wish I had.
     
  3. donnie23

    donnie23 Member

    The years I spent in PR taught me that, sadly, this is exactly the opposite of what many PR people think. Many of them want non-journalists because they are often more willing to develop and pitch stories that former journalists know are not stories at all. If you bring your news judgment into many PR settings -- not all, of course, but the handful I've seen -- you will be told to leave it at the door and push the agenda you're being paid to push.
     
  4. Drip

    Drip Active Member

    That causes problems for many journalists but hey, if they're paying well enough, I'll push a peanut down the street.
     
  5. azom

    azom Member

    I'm starting classes for my master's in communication this fall. I still think, even if there's no longer a need for teachers of newspaper journalism, there will always be a need for teachers of mass communication, no matter the form. I think that's how j-school will change in the future. Same basic points, just different media. And the degree will hold about the same value it does now.
     
  6. IGotQuestions

    IGotQuestions Member

    This was the trend at universities all across the U.S. the last 2 years, too: http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=43104
     
  7. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    Bingo. The proponents of keeping useless J-schools open always say, "well, you can go into PR or online journalism."

    PR doesn't want journalists, they want advertising copywriters. And there are even fewer paying online journalism jobs than there are in print.

    The industry is dying, well on the way to dead. It's irresponsible and unconscionable to encourage students to waste their time and money in J-schools. Shut the fuckers down.

    Quit pouring thousands of new applicants every year into a market which is chainsawing current payrolls off at the neck.
     
  8. BRoth

    BRoth Member

    I was thinking about starting a new thread, but this seems perfect.

    I randomly met a high school journalism teacher today who told me he doesn't trust journalists or newspapers. Seriously.

    Now, he wasn't taught journalism in college, he said he studied mass communication. He bad-mouthed our local paper for a bit and wasn't interested in discussing it more so that's essentially where that part of the conversation ended.
     
  9. tapintoamerica

    tapintoamerica Well-Known Member

    As long as newspaper do exist, there will be some newsrooms run by people who -- narrow-mindedly -- only consider J-School grads. And as long as that's the case, there will be J-Schools in some form.
     
  10. Mark2010

    Mark2010 Active Member

    If you cut out all the BS core requirements and concentrated on what you are really there for (academically, not to get drunk or get laid), you could finish in half the time and half the cost.

    Of course, universities will never do that, because it would put a lot of English professors out of work. Honestly, some of these classes NO ONE would take if they weren't required to.
     
  11. bumpy mcgee

    bumpy mcgee Well-Known Member

    couldn't agree more Mark. These were actual courses I took the last semester my senior year because I pretty much had to choose something to finish my "education."
     
  12. Mark2010

    Mark2010 Active Member

    The industry, like every industry, needs fresh meat. Who else is going to take those $11 per hour jobs in Podunkville?

    You would also run the very real risk of losing an entire generation of people trained in the profession. Then, when the old-timers retire, who would take their place?

    I agree that there are far too many journalists wannabees, especially in sports. Message boards such as these do a fine job of deterring the next Grantland Rice from pursuing such and send him over to the accounting department, where his entrance is met with a collective groan and a communal sigh of "What, not ANOTHER one!"
     
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