In case you haven’t heard, journalism is apparently disappearing.
On Oct. 18, National Public Radio published an article entitled “What’s the Point of Journalism School, Anyway?” where the writer rhetorically battled assertions that journalism is a dying profession because information in the 21st century is free.
The claims were made, interestingly, by students at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik declared, “These days journalism schools around the country are often challenged to justify a mission that trains students at such a high cost for a collapsing industry that doesn’t even require a degree.”
The article resolves its own skepticism by consulting cheerful Annenberg faculty, who adopt the reassuring tone of a press release for the school.
Ernest Wilson, dean of USC’s journalism school, insists a “free and independent press” is intrinsic to a democracy — a point with which I absolutely agree.
Yet, as Folkenflik discloses, Wilson is also chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — a major source of funding for NPR.
So much for independent press.
Thus, whether intentionally or not, Folkenflik’s piece serves as a prime case for why journalism education should be taken more seriously at the national media level.
With PR firms, advertising companies and talking heads taking over the industry, objectivity is indeed a fading value — especially at NPR — but it’s one that must be revived, and mass communication schools need to perform the resuscitation.
Journalism curricula stress journalistic neutrality.
On the other hand, mass communication students are also taught the media must dissect and explain information for meaning, which requires a certain amount of subjectivity.
As opinion editor Andrew Robertson pointed out last week, opinion journalism — considered by many to be an oxymoron — is everywhere, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We all have personal views, and some of us are paid to express them.
The modern format of journalism, with 24-hour news networks and Internet convergence, encourages this element of bias. Nobody wants to watch or listen to someone simply rehashing events. To engage people, journalists must themselves participate in dialogue and debate.
NPR knew this when it hired now-ex employee Juan Williams in 2000 to be a news analyst. The organization was also aware Williams already had a contract with FOX News.
The decade-long love triangle among Williams, FOX and NPR was full of tension, often stemming from Williams’ insistence on speaking his mind. As an analyst, rather than reporter, he was justified to do so — especially on outlets like “The O’Reilly Factor.”
It made no sense for CEO Vivian Schiller to terminate Williams for participating as usual in what NPR’s code of ethics calls “shows … that encourage punditry and speculation” as if it were news to her. The issue wasn’t with Williams’ connection to FOX News, his outspokenness or his Islamophobic confessions.
The bone of contention lay in NPR’s unspoken ethics policy, which bases editorial decisions not on universal journalistic standards but on the opinions of its financial patrons — the public and the government.
If special-interest groups and readers hadn’t stormed NPR with a record number of angry comments attacking Williams’ character, he probably wouldn’t be a full-time FOX News employee as of last week.
But alas, Williams is gone for good from NPR and in his absence, the government-funded radio program faces a public relations nightmare.
Annenberg School, get ready — Schiller may just be enrolling in Media Ethics and Crisis Management 101.
Kelly Hotard is a 19-year-old mass communication sophomore from Picayune, Miss. Follow her on Twitter @TDR_khotard.
 
____
Contact Kelly Hotard at [email protected]