Should You Go to J-School? A Newspaper Editor’s Thoughts
Guest blog with Robb Grindstaff, newspaper editor!
There was an interesting piece and comments on the pros and cons of pursuing a master’s degree in journalism on Gawker recently, which spurred a conversation between Lauri and me. What are the benefit of a j-school advanced degree in today’s media world? What is today’s media world? What about tomorrow? Is spending $40-$50,000 on a j-school master’s program worth it anymore?
Yeah, tough times right now for journalists. The entire news media industry is in flux. Newspapers and other print media in particular are getting hammered financially by the changing world, changing consumer habits and the recession.
I’m not a good personal example for the question. I’ve been in the business for 30 years, ever since I dropped out of j-school after two years and took a very non-traditional journalism route. I took a clerk position in the production department at a newspaper, theoretically for a year and then I would go back to school. But I fell in love with the newspaper business, as a business, in addition to the writing and reporting part of it. I worked in production, ad sales, and got into a management job when I was 28. I became a publisher of a community daily newspaper when I was 33, which was the first time I’d returned to the journalism side, all while continuing my education at night after working 60 hour weeks and raising a family. As a community newspaper publisher, you do everything. I was responsible for the whole newspaper, from profit/loss to readership growth to editorial to fixing the toilet in the women’s restroom when it leaked.
Several of the comments on the Gawker piece bemoaned the fact that you could get an advanced degree in journalism and then waste your newly purchased expertise slaving away for low wages at community newspapers, instead of having the opportunity to properly utilize your vast reporting and writing skills for one of the major media.
Besides being just a tad bit elitist, those comments overlook the importance of local community news media when national and world news have become commodities. This attitude also overlooks the skills development that working for a community newspaper brings. Having been a publisher, an editor and a general manager of newspapers of various sizes and locations, I’ll take a reporter who has cut his teeth for a few years covering small to mid-size community people, politics, crime and courts over someone who just walked out of j-school with a fresh master’s degree and sights set on a Pulitzer Prize and a self-important mission to change the world and make it rich.
If you have both the education and a few years’ experience living and breathing with the people you write about, then your resume will really catch my attention.
Then again, maybe you’re wondering if there will even be any journalism jobs available when you graduate with that shiny new diploma.
Somedays, I wonder why anyone would want to become a journalist in these times. It’s never been a high-paying career, unless you were one of a very small handful of the top-notch and luckiest. In the community newspaper world I’ve known and loved, the only people who will ever read or hear your story are the ones who live in your small city or town, and you’ll make near-poverty wages to start. With all the downsizing and shuttering of newspapers in the U.S. in the past couple of years, and the resulting number of unemployed journalists, competition even for those jobs is fierce.
The draw of journalism has never been the pay, but the ‘higher calling,’ the feeling that you’re doing something worthwhile to society, whether that society is Mayberry, Wichita, or the readers of the New York Times. Our democracy depends on a fourth estate to watch over the government, from the White House to the local school board, an objective observer on behalf of the citizens and taxpayers.
Today, anyone with a computer and a point-of-view can hop on the Internet and ‘report’ the news from their personal perspective. Fact-checking, editing, and ethical standards are optional. News has become devalued.
That’s the negative side of the media world today. The positive side? I believe it’s a cycle, and people will eventually realize we need quality journalism again. It may not be delivered on printed newspapers or by the major TV and cable networks as much. The technological innovations have made the dissemination of news and information to people easier, faster, cheaper. It’s lowered the bar to enter the news media business, which along with the downside has also increased competition and voices, which is always a good thing. It’s thrown the business model of selling advertising to reach a mass market out the window, and the new business model hasn’t quite been perfected yet. Or developed. Or even thought of.
The media industry is in transition, and there will be major winners and losers come out of it. Some getting out of j-school now will get in on the ground floor of the next big wave and be very successful — they may even invent the next big wave. Most will get jobs at small community media, or in public relations or corporate marketing, where they will spend years paying off the big college loans. Or they might be working in Walmart or McDonalds for a bit before finding that journalism job — or as a second job to make ends meet.
By the way, community newspapers are still holding their own in terms of readership and profitability. The oft-predicted death spiral of newspapers generally applies on to the major market newspapers owned by mega-corporations who borrowed heavily to buy other newspapers and now can’t meet the loan obligations or find a buyer.
The writer of the article on Gawker (hunterw) had another very valid point. A journalism degree teaches you how to write coherently, how to research, ask questions, and interview people. It provides hands-on experience in communicating a message via a variety of media and computer programs. All of those skills come in handy in nearly any field and career choice.
As long as j-schools still teach students to think for themselves, to be skeptical of government, and to distrust anyone in a position of authority, then I’ll feel good about the future of the media, and our country.
Robb Grindstaff is the managing editor of a daily newspaper that covers the U.S. military worldwide. He also writes and edits fiction. He still sees a clear distinction between journalism and fiction in spite of all evidence to the contrary.
For a different point of view on the same subject, see Richard Sine’s article Richard Sine’s article at huffingtonpost.com.
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August 27th, 2009 at 9:13 am
If my daughter sees this and comes to me for $$ after graduating from Newhouse, I’m going to hunt you down.
August 27th, 2009 at 10:13 am
Me? Or Robb? Or both of us?
August 27th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Before I actually went to university, I was aiming for Journalism School. Most days, I’m glad I didn’t meet the entrance criteria.
I hardly envy those in the field, as it seems the public is growing more and more sceptical of good reporting due to all the sensationalism around. That, and very low pay combined with long hours could be very demoralizing.
Now, I *did* go into marketing, which according to some (most…), is probably a much worse career!
August 27th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
Interesting article Robb, or should I say ‘post’ in this new world. Flexibility seems to be the key. My 22 yr old nephew left a journalism degree to go into commerce, now he works for a big accounting conultancy firm and hates it. He thinks his life is over and he’s stuck in finance forever – I see it (and I browbeat him with this) as an opportunity to blend the two together and try writing finance/journalism pieces. It’s that ability to move around and make opportunites that will serve the new generations of journo’s best, I reckon.
August 27th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
Now you’ve gone and changed the spelling of ‘skeptical’ to ‘sceptical.’ All my American friends will think I don’t know how to spell. An editor who can’t spell would be very skary, so I have to point out you’re in the United Cingdom.
August 28th, 2009 at 8:53 am
LOL, just changed it back. I wondered about that, “sceptical” didn’t quite look right to me.
You can blame my UK spell checker that runs in Firefox. I don’t know how to disable it, and it sometimes confuses the $#!7 out of me. It didn’t recognize words like “anymore” or “couldn’t” until I added them to the dictionary.
I wonder if they teach people in J-school to ignore your spell check? If not, they should.