Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Sigh...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130437287&sc=fb&cc=fp

Mid-article, the writer poses the problem:
These days journalism schools around the country are often challenged to justify a mission that trains students at such a high cost for a collapsing industry that doesn't even require a degree. 
After all, many newspaper companies have been forced to seek bankruptcy protection, including the owner of the nearby Los Angeles Times. ABC News just let go a quarter of its entire staff. AndNewsweek and BusinessWeek magazines were in such tough shape their longtime owners sold them for $1 a piece.
Towards the end of the article is what we are told in j-school ad nauseam:
"If you look around the world, whether it's a developed country or a developing country ... if that country has a free and independent press it's much more likely they're going to be a democracy," he says. "And I think those of us in [the] journalism education field have an obligation to help train people to provide information in the public interest."
And stuff like this:
"I am concerned, as a dean, at the costs and debt burdens these students take on," Wilson said. "But I'm also concerned about training the next generation of people who are going to provide the backbone of democracy."
Yeah... we are all skeptical... but trying to deal and learn to love our choice.

1 comment:

dolphintim said...

We have to go to India - that's what printed press/ newspapers are making record profits year after year, so i learnt from the Economist!