The education of journalists

Abstract

Noting that journalism education has fallen short of the mark set for it in a visionary essay published by Joseph Pulitzer in 1904, the author analyzes Pulitzer's arguments and then makes a case for strengthening the education of journalists. It is argued that an education for a life as a journalist calls for an immersion in news judgement, the development of university-based skills in evidence gathering and fact assessment, formation in the best literary and/or visual methods of representation, and an under-standing of how to apply the forms of understanding born in the academy to the problems of the here and now. It also involves a careful grounding in the languages, purposes and practices of democratic institutions. Journalism education will be strengthened by a careful reconsideration of the concept of journalism, by a parallel reconsideration of the scholarly tasks supporting the teaching of journalism, and a careful articulation between core journalism subjects and cognate academic disciplines.