Number 1
What's the Right Way to Train Journalists...Today?
Posted 10.16.02

New this week in the Essay section: Orville Schell, Dean of the journalism school at Berkeley, on how a career writing about China led him to an interest in journalism education. What the Berkeley' J-school is doing to counter corrosive trends in the media industry. Betty Medsger, former head of the program at San Francisco State, with the conclusions of her study showing that award-winning journalists often skipped J-school. What did these future stars know when they chose English or History majors?

Zoned for Debate goes global: Robert Manoff, Director of the Center for War, Peace and the News Media at NYU connects the stillborn national debate on war with Iraq to the troubles in journalism schools. If the Republic is denied this debate, journalism will have failed, he says. Mine that failure and you have a new mission for Bollinger and crew.

Plus: What's happening abroad? Read Michael Bromley's report on the precarious position of J-schools in Australia. Bromley is the head of one, Queensland University of Technology. Things are bad, he says, because we shrink from the biggest questions.

Forum, Round Two

Who should be added to Bollinger's Task Force?

Introduction by Jay Rosen

Replies from:

Roy Peter Clark

Ted Conover

Jim Eggensperger

Roy Gutman

Richard Halloran

Tim Hamlett

David Holmberg

Daniel Lazare

Susie Linfield

Susan Older

Geneva Overholser

Kim Pearson

Carol Sternhell

Mitchell Stephens

Randall Scott Sumpter

Michelle Weldon

Sara Whiteley Burke

Ellen Willis

Earlier:

Round One:

"To teach the craft of journalism is a worthy goal but clearly insufficient in this new world and within the setting of a great university," Columbia President Lee Bollinger has said.

What do you think?

Responses from:

Amy Atkins
"Why not save time and money and learn journalism in the real world? Because the real world sucks."

Michael Norman
"The debate this time is no different, just louder and, I submit, a colossal distraction from the real issue, a problem as old as the academy: what does it mean to be 'educated?'"

Ellen Willis
"J-school ideology sees hard news reporting as the essential initiation rite that defines a real journalist."

And more...

New Essays by:

Orville Schell, Some Ruminations on Journalism Schools As Columbia Turns

Betty Medsger, Getting Journalism Education Out of the Way

Robert Manoff, Democratic Journalism and the Republican Subject: Or, the Real American Dream and What Journalism Educators Can Do About It

Michael Bromley, Journalism Still Dodges the Big Questions: A View From Australia

Earlier:

Vartan Gregorian, Journalism, the Quintessential Knowledge Profession, has an Information Problem

William Serrin, Time to Retire All the Old Arguments About Journalism School

Les Gura, Journalism is Thinkology. Now How Do You Teach That?

James Traub, The Crisis is Not in Here, But Out there: Journalism as Pedagogy

Theodore L. Glasser, What Difference Does a Journalism Education Make?

Jon Katz, Bollinger's Windbags Won't Do Much Without the Young

Cole C. Campbell, One Heresy for Every Verity: What if Columbia's Team of Journalism All-Stars Went to School?

G. Stuart Adam, A Provost's Advice on Bollinger's Quest

Dan Kennedy, Strip It Down, Go Eclectic: J-School Should Stop Getting in the Way of a Real Education

Brooke Kroeger, Journalism With A Scholar's Intent

Wayne Robins, Wimps of the Roundtable and Other Challenges for Journalism Schools

Jay Rosen, Taking Bollinger's Course on the American Press

Ron Rosenbaum, Columbia's J-School Needs to Consider Trollopian Retooling

Mitchell Stephens, A J-School Manifesto