If you meet a theologian, lawyer, or doctor, you can be sure that they have spent a long time acquiring specialized knowledge in a professional university before starting their work. In journalism, it’s different. Even the best journalism schools will not deny that a degree is not necessary to work in the media.
Some would argue that studying journalism can be useful for editorial work or, say, reporting. But the best journalists often didn’t study journalism at all, and there is no evidence that a journalism degree gives you a chance to get a better job. So do we need a journalism school?
If it has not been able to achieve the goal formulated by Joseph Pulitzer for more than a century of its existence, which is to raise journalism to the level of a learned profession, then the world will lose nothing if it disappears.
At the same time, the system under which journalism schools operate is based on inequality.
An inefficient journalism school is a waste of time and money for students. But there are also benefits: if students pay, then teachers and other university staff get paid. The only people who really lose out are the students.
Journalism education can be effective, but it is expensive. For example, a one-year program at the Columbia School of Journalism costs about $150,000, and a two-year program costs more than $200,000. There are alternative options. You can graduate from a four-year college and go to work. Obviously, with such a background, you will come to work more experienced than those who start working in journalism right after high school.
But what about those people who decided not to get a journalism degree? They have to compete with those who, say, have a degree in journalism from Columbia University. Obviously, those with degrees will attract employers more.
It turns out that a person has already done a lot of damage to himself or herself by spending a lot of money on education. And now he is also preventing another person from joining the journalistic environment. Simply because that person was smart enough not to get a journalism degree.
In practice, this means that if you are poor, from the countryside, have a different skin color or disability, or are a single mother with two children, you cannot go to journalism school. Meanwhile, the profession needs more people with different backgrounds.
The best thing to do is to abolish journalism degrees altogether or narrow it down to a purely research-based education. This would save students billions of dollars and level the playing field for people who want to enter the profession. It would also inevitably return the profession to an on-the-job training model. Beginners will learn the basics of journalism faster, taking their first steps in the profession, and will feel more responsible. After all, no one will kick you out of journalism school for spelling the mayor’s name wrong in a headline.