In what may be a sign of things to come, the University of Colorado is considering closing its traditional journalism school and adjusting media studies and journalism to a new ear– and the announcement some will consider spinspeak about how exciting future educational offerings to those interested in journalism will be under a new program with a new title.
Some will consider all of this putting a brave, academic, bureaucratic spinspeak on a sad, cold reality. Some will consider it a valid, honest announcement that the time has come to redefine a journalism education still largely anchored in 20th century assumptions. But the bottom line is this: the concept of a traditional journalism school, training students for careers in print media (that is shrinking in opportunities, employees and managers) and even regular broadcast (news departments even as the networks have downsized in recent years) may not be suitable or realistic in an era where info is now available on many platforms. Traditional print and traditional broadcast are to many young people oh, so 20th century…and shifts in readership and audience underscore the reality.
Here’s the Boulder Daily Camera story:
The University of Colorado is considering closing its traditional journalism school and dramatically remodeling the way it trains students for the profession.
The future of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication is unclear, but budget woes and the rapid evolution of media have prompted Chancellor Phil DiStefano to instruct CU officials to start reviewing the school under the regents’ “discontinuance” policy.
Interim Provost Russell Moore is also setting up an exploratory panel charged with generating recommendations for a new information, communication and technology program. The earliest a school of
information could emerge is 2012, Moore said.
The shake-up could translate to job cuts for journalism school employees without tenure.
But CU officials said the school will remain open long enough for all current journalism students to complete their degrees.
CU’s journalism school now enrolls 647 undergraduates; 58 master’s students and 26 doctoral students. The curriculum could shift for CU’s 684 pre-journalism students who have yet to be accepted into the journalism school.
Students on Wednesday raised questions about how the change will affect their education and the value of their degrees. But some said the journalism school — however it evolves — should train students so they’re better prepared for digital journalism.
Here are the official announcement: and there is an ineffable aroma of spin and agony:
In fact, this comes as no surprise to many of us who went to traditional journalism schools some years ago. As newspapers have closed or greatly downsized, talk among many reporters and people associated with journalism schools often turns to questions about a) where traditional journalism schools are headed b) how they will change in a dramatically changing news media and c) what teachers can tell prospective students about what they will do with their nearly learned skills in a hugely downsized market that has not yet stabilized…and could mean a far smaller media when it actually does stabilize.
(I graduated from the Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism with my MSJ class of ’73. Newspapers were thriving in Chicago with three newspapers. Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel were competing movie reviewers who we were told disliked each other, and each one came in and lectured to our class. Mike Royko was the city’s top columnist. Newspapers were thriving but evening papers were beginning to be done in by the network evening newscasts.)
Now the question is: is this a harbinger of things to come?
Or in most cases will most traditional journalism schools adapt and evolve rather than essentially vanish and re-emerge in a new incarnation?
Is CSU’s announcement getting a bad press that simply doesn’t get what’s going on? Or is this really just academic spin — and that this is a sign that traditional journalism schools will go the way of pay telephone and that a lot of journalism profs might want to send out their resumes (and you are welcome to join TMV as co-bloggers..)?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.