More Life, Less Trade

U.S. journalism schools are improving these days because they are teaching less journalism. At both graduate and undergraduate levels, the schools are stressing the liberal arts and down playing the techniques of the trade. In most undergraduate schools, only 25% of the course requirements are in actual journalism, and that percentage is decreasing even further at some schools. "The four years of college," says Robert Beyers of Stanford University, "is such a short time to acquire an education that it should not be devoted to learning skills which can easily be acquired outside the classroom."

Under Deans I. W. Cole and Peter P. Jacobi, Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism now requires its graduate students to take two seminars in the reporting of public affairs. Courses are offered in urban problems, education, science and technology. One student who took a course in the U.S. legal system grumbled that it was "just like an advanced political-science course." The school's reply is that that's just what it is supposed to be.

Context of Society. In order to avoid too ivory tower an approach, Northwestern gives its students practical experience covering a newsbeat for Chicago's American. Similarly, some 15 students each quarter go to Washington, where they work out of the National Press Building under the supervision of a professor in residence. The Missouri School of Journalism plans next fall to start sending students to Brussels for a semester, where they will report on EEC, Euratom and other European affairs.

As journalism schools have expanded, they have grown uneasy with even the name journalism. Many now call themselves schools of "communications" and try to deal with the broad spectrum of human dialogue. Stanford's Department of Communication, for example, has added courses called "Government and the Mass Media" and "Ethics in the Mass Media" to stimulate students' thinking about their work in the wider context of society. At the same time, Stanford encourages nonjournalism students to take these courses, thus breaking down even more the distinction between journalism students and those of other disciplines.

As they have received a better, broader education, many journalism students now set their sights on careers in other fields. Enrollment at 118 major U.S. journalism schools has more than doubled over the past nine years to 24,445; yet a declining percentage of graduates go into journalism--less than 45% last year. Careers in business, government, public relations or advertising offer better salaries as a rule and more promising future prospects. As Bob McVea, a Northwestern journalism student who plans to join a newspaper, puts it: "You have to be dedicated to pauperism."

Burst of Communications. Bowing to the inevitable, more and more journalism schools are offering courses or majors in broadcasting, advertising and public relations. Boston University's School of Public Communications has 230 undergraduate majors in public relations, 200 in broadcasting and film, only 170 in journalism. The Columbia Graduate School of Journalism is rare in that it offers no course in advertising or public relations and discourages students from going into those fields. On the other hand, it boasts one of the most extensive broadcasting facilities of any school, with radio and TV studio, editing and screening rooms under the direction of onetime CBS News President Fred Friendly.

Understandably, editors are considerably less hostile to journalism-school graduates than they used to be. Some still feel, along with Boston Globe Editor Thomas Winship, that graduate study in international politics or economics is more useful than journalism school. But a growing number agree with St. Louis Globe-Democrat Managing Editor George Killenberg. "There are only a few who still hold the old view of journalism schools," he says. "I didn't graduate from one, but I've been impressed with what we've seen recently. These guys can do the job right away."

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