An old debate. The stalwarts maintained that ‘you grow into the profession’ and ‘unlearn what you learnt at a journalism school.’ And the debate goes on. In 1902 Joseph Pulitzer came on the scene and offered Columbia University $2 million to establish a journalism school.“The administration wavered; Pulitzer’s peers thought the idea ludicrous. As Michael Lewis once reported in the New Republic, a New York newspaper editor ‘suggested that one might as well set up a graduate school in swimming.’
“Now while newspapers dwindle, journalism graduates keep coming,” writes Jonathan V. Last in The Daily Standard.
I have been teaching journalism for the past four years in India and find this article interesting. Incidentally, in India we have a large number of journalism/media schools coming up in big cities where a majority of students are young women graduates.
Jonathan Last says there are now some 450 journalism and mass-communications programs across the USA, although only 100 or so are accredited. “These news-writer factories have contributed mightily to the ranks of America’s 116,000 working journalists.”
According to the forthcoming book The American Journalist in the 21st Century, 36.2 percent of journalists with college degrees were journalism majors. If you include journalism-related “communications” majors, the percentage jumps to 49.5. This far exceeds the percentages of the next most common major, English (14.9 percent). History, political science, math and physical science majors–combined–total only 13.7 percent.
Jonathan adds: “Instead of educating future journalists on the nuts and bolts of journalism–because let’s be honest, it isn’t rocket science or even carpentry–it would make more sense simply to teach them things. Facts, it turns out, are useful.”
And he has some interesting suggestions up his sleeve.
Swaraaj Chauhan describes his two-decade-long stint as a full-time journalist as eventful, purposeful, and full of joy and excitement. In 1993 he could foresee a different work culture appearing on the horizon, and decided to devote full time to teaching journalism (also, partly, with a desire to give back to the community from where he had enriched himself so much.)
Alongside, he worked for about a year in 1993 for the US State Department’s SPAN magazine, a nearly five-decade-old art and culture monthly magazine promoting US-India relations. It gave him an excellent opportunity to learn about things American, plus the pleasure of playing tennis in the lavish American embassy compound in the heart of New Delhi.
In !995 he joined WWF-India as a full-time media and environment education consultant and worked there for five years travelling a great deal, including to Husum in Germany as a part of the international team to formulate WWF’s Eco-tourism policy.
He taught journalism to honors students in a college affiliated to the University of Delhi, as also at the prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication where he lectured on “Development Journalism” to mid-career journalists/Information officers from the SAARC, African, East European and Latin American countries, for eight years.
In 2004 the BBC World Service Trust (BBC WST) selected him as a Trainer/Mentor for India under a European Union project. In 2008/09 He completed another European Union-funded project for the BBC WST related to Disaster Management and media coverage in two eastern States in India — West Bengal and Orissa.
Last year, he spent a couple of months in Australia and enjoyed trekking, and also taught for a while at the University of South Australia.
Recently, he was appointed as a Member of the Board of Studies at Chitkara University in Chandigarh, a beautiful city in North India designed by the famous Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. He also teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students there.
He loves trekking, especially in the hills, and never misses an opportunity to play a game of tennis. The Western and Indian classical music are always within his reach for instant relaxation.
And last, but not least, is his firm belief in the power of the positive thought to heal oneself and others.