History of Journalism Education

The Move toward Professionalization

The conflict over journalism education occurred within a society that turned increasingly toward professionalization through university matriculation, an important avenue of upward mobility. Burton Bledstein, in his landmark study of the evolution of the professions, argued that “the development of higher education in America made possible a social faith in merit, competence, discipline, and control that were basic to accepted conceptions of achievement and success.” In a society that found itself without a significant landed gentry, a skilled workforce, and no adequate apprenticeship system, the college degree became the license through which an individual sought entry into the “respectability and rewards of a profession . . . For the middle class in America, degree-granting education was an instrument of ambition and a vehicle to status in the occupational world.” ¹⁶

Bledstein did not view professionalization as an entirely positive phenomenon. He thought it created a pattern of dependence. He wrote,

Professional reporters and editors who practiced the new journalism drew the public’s attention to themselves by exaggerating the importance of the daily news, especially its apocalyptic and menacing overtones. The public was simultaneously fascinated and frightened. In the popular press of the 1890s, for example, Joseph Pulitzer of the World and William Randolph Hearst of the Journal calculated to prepare the nation for a war with Spain by means of their own well-organized army of reporters, boats, and communication facilities . . . Even the United States government depended upon the information provided by the press. ¹⁷

The development of journalism education may have been, in part, a response to Pulitzer and Hearst excesses, but it was more likely related to the ongoing professionalization occurring nationwide.

Early Programs and Curricula

By the turn of the twentieth century, journalists and editors increasingly focused on the conflicting values of journalism as a working-class, printing trades endeavor and as an emerging profession with editors and writers who belonged to the middle class. Between 1870 and 1900, the number of editors and journalists increased by a factor of three. Journalism courses at universities followed the same pattern. By 1900, courses were offered not only at Cornell and Washington College but also at public universities in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Kansas, and Missouri. In 1908, the University of Missouri established a separate academic unit with a specific degree in journalism. By 1910, three other departments or schools of journalism were established at the universities of Wisconsin, New York, and Washington. Similar programs were in effect by 1920 at Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Ohio. ¹⁸ Private universities venturing into this realm included Columbia, Northwestern, and Washington and Lee.

Three major institutions that survive today represent three distinct strands of journalism education. At Missouri, where the first dean, Walter Williams, came from the newspaper world with close ties to the Missouri Press Association, the emphasis was on a laboratory approach with specific focus on skills, ethics, and the history of journalism. At Columbia, a serious attempt, although short-lived, was made to integrate liberal arts into the journalism curriculum, rather than sending students out to other areas of the university. At Wisconsin, Willard Bleyer, the school’s founder, who held a doctorate in English, valued communications research as perhaps no other early deans did. Bleyer also differed in that he saw the university as a treasure of knowledge for reporters. He wanted journalists to understand the value of the emerging discipline of social science.

Discussions about the curriculum at Missouri reflected the current national debate. Missouri’s Walter Williams, who was instrumental in establishing the School and who was its first dean, had the support of the Missouri Press Association. In a speech before the Missouri Press Association in May 1908, Williams said that the school at Missouri “seeks to do for journalism what schools of law, medicine, agriculture, engineering and normal schools have done for these vocations.” He also noted that the new school was “equal in rank, with the schools or colleges of law, medicine, engineering, agriculture and the teachers’ college.” He emphasized that the school “adds the laboratory to the lecture method, the clinic supplementing of the classroom. It trains to do by doing.” ¹⁹ Williams’s statements reflect his desire for journalism to be considered equal with other professionally oriented academic disciplines. At the same time, he wanted to serve his professional roots—the working press.

The support of the Missouri Press Association reflected another aspect of professionalization—the development of associations organized to establish standards of behavior and to exert influence from the larger group onto individual newspapers. Stephen Banning, in the book written to celebrate the centennial of the establishment of the Missouri school, noted that interest in professionalization did not come from the government, but from “individual groups of practitioners.” Banning wrote,

They made the case that their fields were worthy of esteem. The clergy traditionally had held this position, physicians and attorneys followed; then, so did soldiers, teachers, and engineers. Thus, it was against this backdrop that the public understood professions in the mid-nineteenth century. They were few, they were respected, and they were envied. ²⁰

The National Press Club, founded in May 1908, sought to “provide people who gather and disseminate news a center for the advancement of their professional standards and skills.” The Club adopted Walter Williams’s 1914 Journalist’s Creed, a statement of ethical practices and beliefs that Williams developed as leader of the Missouri School of Journalism. ²¹

I believe in the profession of journalism.

I believe that the public journal is a public trust; that all connected with it are, to the full measure of their responsibility, trustees for the public; that acceptance of lesser service than the public service is betrayal of this trust.

I believe that clear thinking and clear statement, accuracy and fairness, are fundamental to good journalism.

I believe that a journalist should write only what he holds in his heart to be true . . . ²²

Another model of journalism education developed at Columbia University. Joseph Pulitzer had been in conversations with Columbia as early as 1892 about a lectureship in journalism, but as James Boylan wrote, Pulitzer devised the idea for a school in 1902. ²³ Finally, in 1912, after many years of negotiations, Columbia Journalism School opened its doors with a grant of $2 million (about $50 million in today’s currency) from Joseph Pulitzer. Pulitzer vacillated during the early years of the century about whether a school of journalism was the appropriate method for educating journalists, but he felt strongly about establishing journalism as an intrinsic force for democracy. In response to an essay by Horace White in the North American Review, Pulitzer noted that the training a journalist receives in a newspaper office is “incidental” only, “not apprenticeship.” He wrote: “Nobody in a newspaper office has the time or the inclination to teach a raw reporter the things he ought to know before taking up even the humblest work of the journalist.” ²⁴ By this time, Pulitzer was committed to a school of journalism at Columbia, but he refrained from committing funds until after he died. In the North American Review, Pulitzer made many of the statements now most often attributed to him. His primary goal for the college, he wrote, was to

make better journalists, who will make better newspapers, which will better serve the public. It will impart knowledge—not for its own sake, but to be used for the public service. It will try to develop character, but even that will be only a means to the one supreme end—the public good. ²⁵

Of the schools that began journalism instruction early, Columbia’s approach was unique. Initially, all courses were taught in the school, and liberal arts courses had a distinct journalistic bent. For example, those studying French and German read the newspapers of those countries. Boylan wrote in his history of the school,

The aim was to provide “a sound general education” and “specialized technical training” in the same four years usually required for general education alone. The curriculum appeared to have ingeniously bridged the gap between the liberal and practical arts and, equally important, to have invested the scholarly resources of the university in the success of the school. ²⁶

However, foreshadowing what the School would become, a student with a bachelor’s degree was admitted and expected to complete the journalism degree in a single year. As soon as the School had been in operation Pulitzer’s required three years, and the second installment of the Pulitzer funds was released by the Pulitzer trustees, the university administration argued that too many resources were directed toward this unique curriculum. The four-year program was abandoned, and by 1919, the school was offering a two-year curriculum preceded by two years of undergraduate study. “The experiment,” wrote Boylan, “that had just been declared a great success—an undergraduate liberal arts curriculum designed for journalists—had actually been adjudged not a success at all, but an unbearable burden.” ²⁷

Willard G. Bleyer, who was born into one of Milwaukee’s most prominent newspaper families, had a vision of journalism education that incorporated the developments in social science. His father and uncles were closely connected to Milwaukee’s newspapers and were prominent in civic life. As an undergraduate student at Wisconsin, Bleyer helped found the student newspaper, The Daily Cardinal. Bleyer completed an MA in English and then taught in Milwaukee high schools for a short period before he returned to Wisconsin to earn a PhD in English and join the faculty there.

Bleyer’s early days at Wisconsin coincided with the university’s position as a center of social thought at the turn of the century. Wisconsin, Columbia, and the University of Chicago believed that in a “complex and increasingly organized society, academic experts could produce research applicable to social, political, and economic problems of the day.” ²⁸ The Madison campus gained national distinction for advocating a partnership between the university and the state to improve everyday life.

These concepts joined nicely with the development of professionalization and the idea of the journalist as expert. Bleyer valued the journalist who could interpret information and guide the public. He believed newspapers could improve public life by disseminating information about research. He also thought the university and its community were inextricably tied. Different from Walter Williams’ approach, Bleyer’s first goal was to inform the press of university discoveries. He participated in the development of a university news bureau that disseminated such information. He also thought journalists should experience a personal connection to the university. Through his efforts the Wisconsin Press Association convened in 1905 on the Madison campus. Bleyer introduced a press bulletin that provided information nationwide to journalists about ongoing university research.

Whereas Williams introduced journalism education to train journalists to ethically report the world as they saw it, Bleyer believed in the capacity of communication to promote cooperation and social responsibility in the broader population. Media scholars Carolyn Bronstein and Stephen Vaughn wrote of Bleyer,

Newspapers that brought the world of knowledge to readers could not help but improve the social environment, uplifting members of the public and encouraging them to set aside selfish or base impulses in favor of ethical, community-based ways of living. ²⁹

Bleyer argued for responsible journalists and a broad liberal arts education. He believed that 75% of a student’s work should be outside the school of journalism. He said, “The minimum . . . preparation for intelligent newspaper and magazine work was four years of university study that included government and politics, economics, sociology, psychology, history science, and literature.” However, he also argued for a journalism curriculum that went beyond reporting skills. The basic course in newswriting should be “devoted largely to an intensive study of news and its significance,” he said. Bronstein and Vaughn wrote that Bleyer believed such a course would teach students how to analyze the “entire community and its activities.” ³⁰ During the 1920s, Bleyer introduced his advanced students to literature that questioned traditional democratic theory that included work from sociology and political science analyzing the role of mass media in society.

With Bleyer’s introduction of journalism as social science, the argument about journalism education widened. Not only did editors and educators debate the mere presence or absence of a college degree for journalists, or the role of the professional school versus the liberal arts, but they also began a divide between the “professionals” and the “researchers,” or what was in later years commonly termed the green-eye shades of the copy editor desk versus the chi-squares of the quantitative research world.

The schools at Missouri, Wisconsin, and Columbia in the early years represented the varying points of view. For schools to become fully integrated into the university structures, research would have to be a serious part of their endeavors. However, editors such as those from the Missouri Press Association, who sought to align themselves with professional education that would improve the quality of journalists and journalism, along with the standing of journalism as a profession and its reputation in society, never saw the need, purpose, or rationale for what they believed to be esoteric research. As educators sought to create relationships with the various press associations, the struggle over curriculum and direction played out in discussions among the groups.

Evolution of Curriculum and Standards

Through the early 1900s, journalism courses and programs proliferated nationwide. By the end of World War I, college enrollments increased dramatically in journalism schools as in other programs. Nevertheless, the same questions Charles Wingate asked in the 1870s persisted.

Journalism education became organized. In 1912, eighteen journalism educators voted to organize the American Association of Teachers in Journalism (AATJ). Bleyer spearheaded the effort and sought to create an annual meeting and to provide information about schools and teaching. The group published a crude mimeographed newsletter that was replaced in 1924 with the Journalism Bulletin. The Bulletin became Journalism Quarterly in 1928. In 1929, its mission changed from primarily a teaching journal to a research journal.

In 1917, a second organization, the American Association of Schools and Departments of Journalism (AASDJ), was created as a “sister” organization to AATJ. By 1920, ten schools were members of AASDJ. By 1927, that number had grown to eighteen. However, admission to AASDJ was not automatic. Consequently, the rejection of schools such as West Virginia University led Perley Isaac Reed and others to develop, in 1944, a separate administrators’ organization, the American Society of Journalism School Administrators (ASJSA).

The number of journalism students grew rapidly. In 1915 to 1916, The News Letter of the AATJ reported that 175 journalism teachers were instructing 3,500 students enrolled in fifty-five colleges, with thirty states represented. ³¹ According to a report given to the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) in 1928, 430 individuals were teaching journalism to 5,526 students spread across fifty-five institutions. The report listed 931 graduates receiving bachelor’s degrees, an increase of 47 over the total of the prior year.

Research and Cooperation

In addition to the formalized cooperation between the journalism associations and the journalism education associations, other relationships developed among professional journalists and schools. For example, John Drewry reported in Journalism Quarterly in 1933 that Eric Allen of Oregon said the newspaper reporters of his state “saved” the school of journalism when the university sought to shutter the program during the Great Depression. Under the direction of Ralph Casey at the University of Minnesota, the journalism department furnished “much valuable material to the press of that state.” Drewry also reported Director Gayle C. Walker’s news that “at the University of Nebraska an analysis of the advertising content and volume of selected Nebraska weeklies for 1929 and 1931 has been made to determine the gross change in advertising content,” which was a service to the state weeklies. Indeed, ASNE members reported that when Frank Luther Mott took over the Quarterly in 1929, it began to include research of interest to ASNE members, and he urged them to subscribe.

George Gallup in 1930 urged editors to use research “to put the editing of newspapers on a more scientific basis.” He said larger dailies would discover that a research department is indispensable. Other institutions long ago discarded hit-and-miss methods, he said, but the newspaper still trusted largely to “instinct or ‘hunch’ in selecting news and features.” ⁵⁸ Eric Allen surveyed current research in 1930 and noted that of 516 projects, the majority fell into the “newspaper content” category. Allen wrote that Wisconsin was particularly adept at interdisciplinary research “with co-operation taking place between the departments of sociology, rural sociology, journalism and agricultural journalism.” ⁵⁹ Ralph Crosman (University of Colorado) noted that research goes beyond knowledge for knowledge’s sake: “We are in the position of vantage for observation and study; we can relate newspaper tendencies and practices to the whole social situation better than can those daily pressed by the exacting demands of publishing.” ⁶⁰

Advertising

Because of its intimate connection to newspapers, advertising was part of journalism education as early as 1908, when the University of Missouri offered a course in “Advertising and Publishing.” However, journalism was not the only incubator for advertising as a discipline within the university structure. Programs in business and psychology also provided natural homes for courses in the field.

At the turn of the century, Chicago, with its flourishing advertising clubs, became a center of the business of advertising. When Walter Dill Scott, director of Northwestern University’s new Psychological Laboratory, spoke to Chicago’s Agate Club on the application of psychology to advertising, news of his speech spread beyond the city and the state. Admen, as they often were referred to, were struggling to be recognized as professionals. Scott’s 1901 speech gave hope that advertising might be treated as a science. In 1903, Scott published a collection of articles in a book titled The Theory of Advertising. Two years later, an advertising course was offered in the School of Commerce at New York University (NYU) while an advertising professional, Earnest Elmo Caulkins, suggested in a national advertising publication, Profitable Advertising, that an advertising college should be developed. The course of study would include an introductory class covering analysis of product distribution, media usage, and sales management. He proposed that such a college offer more than a dozen courses that would include business conduct, managership, commerce, mail order advertising, and retail advertising. He also thought students should take technical courses in topics such as printing and typography. This course of study would be capped with an exploration of psychology, statistics, and copywriting styles. ⁶¹

A year later, the Associated Advertising Clubs of America, a group newly formed by clubs around the country, championed a professional education. Scott moved from Northwestern’s Psychology Laboratory to the School of Commerce, where he was named Professor of Advertising. Advertising joined, as did journalism and other fledgling professions, the popular professionalization movement that sought a higher social and intellectual status that fields of law and medicine had already achieved. However, as courses developed in other universities, they were situated within journalism, psychology, and business departments with little cohesion or plans for unified development. Scott’s move to the School of Commerce indicated a trend, and by the 1920s, most advertising programs were situated either in business or journalism schools. ⁶²

At least some professional advertisers advocated, from the beginning, programs that would provide research and information to the business. Such a point of view was controversial, but advertisers did not view university education as simple job preparation. The point was illustrated in an article in Advertising and Selling, when the author suggested that

the first step to be taken in the direction of intensive cultivation is the establishment of schools—great schools, thoroughly equipped, and endowed with ample funds, to carry out extensive research and wide investigation, to collect statistics, to make experiments and to bring to their aid the experience and knowledge of all allied sciences. ⁶³

Advertising executives sought to have advertising accepted as a science and hoped that developing solid scientific principles would elevate their profession and increase profits.

During the second decade of the twentieth century, programs proliferated at public and private universities. At Harvard University in 1914, Paul T. Cherington wrote the first advertising textbook specifically designed for business programs, Advertising as a Business Force. Following Scott’s transition from psychology to business, Cherington transferred to Harvard’s new Graduate School of Business Management, where he established a case study approach to advertising. Programs developed at Columbia, NYU, Dartmouth, and others.

Although private university advertising programs focused on managerial and marketing approaches, the state schools that were rapidly expanding in the Midwest introduced advertising through their journalism programs. In 1910, the University of Missouri’s new journalism school offered a major in advertising. These programs echoed the mantra of the editors who encouraged practical education in journalism programs. They eschewed psychology as a frivolous enterprise that would have little impact on the business. They emphasized instead practical instruction in advertising design, layout, and sales. ⁶⁴ The difference in approaches presented difficult problems for advertising professionals. In 1915, advertising educators began meeting for an annual conference with the hope of standardizing curriculum, a goal never realized but often revisited.

Public Relations

Although some public relations scholars argue that public relations as a practice dates to ancient Greece, ⁶⁵ public relations education was a 1920s phenomenon with Edward Bernays teaching the first university-level public relations course in 1923. The class was offered through NYU’s journalism department, housed in the School of Commerce, Accounts, and Finance. During the 1920s, college publicity officers sometimes taught courses as universities began to develop in-house bureaus. However, it was not until World War II that public relations courses showed real growth.

Broadcast Journalism

Broadcast journalism education developed separately from print journalism as many programs emerged within departments of speech—or even commerce. As engineering students perfected and practiced with the new technologies, they sought others who would provide content. The oral tradition associated with speech departments made them a likely choice. The broad nature of the field made it also a natural ally with commerce. Many of these programs were merged into departments, colleges, and schools of journalism and mass communication, and by 1996, half of all such departments and schools had broadcast specializations. ⁶⁶

From the beginning, broadcast education was inextricably linked to practical experience at radio stations and developed with close ties to the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) and the organizations that preceded it. Broadcast education began in the late 1920s and represented not only a desire to educate students to participate in the field but also to capitalize on federal interests in developing educational radio.

Perhaps because of the government’s interest in research projects such as the Princeton Radio Project, broadcast education recognized the role of communication research more quickly and deeply than did print journalism education. However, the tensions between practical education and theoretical knowledge continued as they had in print-oriented journalism programs. Broadcasters, in their discussions of education, emphasized “problem-solving” more than did their print editor counterparts. Furthermore, the nature of the broadcasting business was different. Government regulation required a different approach, for example, in regard to advertising and public interest issues. Graduate programs received little attention until the 1970s, when Robert Crawford’s survey of government, commercial broadcasters, and educators determined that alumni of mass media graduate programs had little impact on the industry and rarely moved into positions of leadership. ⁶⁷

In 1935, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recommended cooperation between educational institutions and radio. Dr. John W. Studebaker, U.S. Commissioner of Education, appointed a committee of thirty-five to achieve that goal. The conversation about broadcasting and education had two dimensions at the federal level. Training radio production personnel received some attention, but the greater goal was to educate through radio.

The NAB, cooperating with Studebaker’s effort, developed scripts at the national level and distributed them to various schools. They also urged radio stations to release time for the schools to broadcast the scripts. As early as 1936, the University of Chicago, DePaul University, and Northwestern University teamed with CBS, Mutual, NBC, and local Chicago radio stations WLS, WJJD, and WINDS. Financial responsibility was split among all parties. The effort was to create programming for a “cultured audience frequently neglected by commercial radio” and to assuage critics of commercial broadcasting. ⁶⁸

The Federal Education Radio Workshop, also part of the Studebaker effort, employed nearly seventy-five workers drawn largely from the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and relief rolls. William Dow Boutwell, editor-in-chief of the Department of the Interior Office of Education, headed the workshop. In addition to creating scripts and making them available to educators, one of its projects involved training nineteen students at NYU. Works Progress Administration employees were loaned to the university for the course, and the university hired two former radio personnel to train teachers and directors of educational broadcasting in professional radio techniques.

Boston University appears to have been the first large educational institution in New England to train students in a formal degree curriculum for the programming and business end of broadcasting. In 1936, Broadcasting reported its program developed in cooperation with WEEI, which held a “Behind the Scenes” night at the station for summer students. Ralph Rogers, who was in charge of radio courses at the university, predicted that many colleges would cooperate with stations and ultimately develop a “Bachelor of Broadcasting,” which he viewed as separate from a degree in journalism. ⁶⁹ In 1948, Boston University offered a two-week field placement with seven stations for about forty-five senior and graduate students. ⁷⁰

In 1936, the University of Minnesota began a radio script-writing course, with an inaugural class of thirty students. The same year, the University of California Extension Division in San Francisco began a ten-week course in continuity writing, commercial broadcasting, and radio production. In the early 1940s, courses continued at Northwestern, NYU, and at City College of New York. Through the 1940s, Boston University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Illinois, and the University of Tulsa attracted the attention of the trade journal Broadcasting for expanding their courses and practicums with radio stations. Conferences between industry representatives and university faculty and students also occurred, with individuals such as Wilbur Schramm, director of the Illinois Institute of Communications, as speakers.

By 1938, more than 300 colleges and universities offered at least one course in radio, according to a United States Office of Education survey. By 1948, the reported number had climbed to more than 400, and thirty-five institutions were offering non-engineering degrees in broadcasting. ⁷¹

At the beginning of World War II, journalism was firmly ensconced within public institutions throughout the United States. Programs emphasized practical training for newspaper work. Broadcast journalism programs emerged through departments of speech and English, as well as journalism. Courses in advertising and public relations were organized into departments of journalism, although they also were taught in other university disciplines. Organizational institutions were in place, laying the groundwork for accreditation efforts that increased in the post-war period. Many of the underlying tensions between the news industries and educators were repeated each decade, and few debates were resolved with clear answers.

This New Field of Mass Communication

Even in the midst of the Depression, the emerging field of communication was attracting attention. In the mid-1930s, John Marshall, an official of the Rockefeller Foundation in New York, probably created the term mass communication when he used the term in an invitation to a dozen scholars to convene monthly to explore the emerging field. ⁷² It was in those seminars that Harold Lasswell presented his model for communication research: Who says what to whom via what channel with what effect? This marked a beginning of social science research as a fundamental part of communication study within departments that increasingly included public relations and advertising within traditional journalism schools.

A lack of understanding about the impact of electronic media—films and broadcast—led to increased research and furthered the role of research within communication departments. As the film industry expanded, young adults were attracted to darkened theaters, a place where they could escape the overly protective eyes of their elders. Public outcry about the influence of the movies soon followed. Such concern prompted the Payne Fund Studies. Studies of radio also burgeoned, with one of these projects tangentially connected to Columbia’s journalism school. The Princeton Radio Project, directed by Paul Lazarsfeld, studied the effect of radio on American life, and in 1940, the project, originally financed by the Rockefeller Foundation, moved from Princeton to Columbia University. Apparently, its only tie to the journalism school was a seat on the advisory board. ⁷³ The study of the Orson Welles “War of the Worlds” broadcast and various means of measuring radio audiences and audience reactions were soon published.

Some journalism schools incorporated the new developments in social science research into their curricula. In 1944, Ralph Nafziger established the first research division within a journalism school at Wisconsin and Wilbur Schramm, who took over in 1943 as director of journalism at the University of Iowa from the venerated historian Frank Luther Mott, submitted a plan to broaden the journalism major from how-to-do-it journalism classes to include social science courses such as sociology, psychology, and economics. Research institutes also developed at Stanford, Illinois, and MIT. As communication research laid the groundwork for academic acceptance of communication as a discipline, doctoral programs began at Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota. Schramm’s program at Stanford, begun in 1955, became famous for its doctoral students. The program admitted many students who had at least a few years in media work while it trained students extensively in quantitative methods. ⁷⁴

However, newspaper owners and editors did not react positively to this new development, stressing that

journalists mainly needed to know the basics—how to write and how to spell . . . Most editors viewed social science as irrelevant to everyday newspaper work, which they insisted was best learned as they had learned it—on the job. The idea of journalism professors with PhD degrees in social science seemed a foolish, possibly dangerous, trend. ⁷⁵

AEJ was slow to welcome mass communication scholars as well. In 1955, Wayne Danielson, a PhD student at Stanford, who later became dean at North Carolina and then Texas, and who pioneered research on computer use in newsrooms, helped organize a “rump” session at AEJ’s annual convention. Danielson drove a borrowed car to the Boulder, Colorado, meeting and slept on the floor of a faculty member’s dormitory room. He and other PhD candidates in communication theory and methods met Wilbur Schramm, who was moving from Illinois to Stanford that summer. Danielson recalled the students instantly liked Schramm, when he apologized for being late with the phrase, “Sorry I’m late, I sat up all night with a sick factor analysis.” The “rump” session and the planning that followed achieved the goal of including communication theory papers at AEJ, and they became part of the regular program in 1958. ⁷⁶

New organizations formed, in part, to counteract the resistance of AEJ to adapt to social science research. The National Society for the Study of Communication was formed in 1950 and a year later began publication of the Journal of Communication, today one of the most highly ranked journals in the field.

An Attack on the News Industry

At the same time that academics were incorporating communication theory into journalism programs, the news industry was facing a broader attack from academics. In 1947, the Commission on Freedom of the Press issued A Free and Responsible Press, a stinging indictment of American journalism. The report tied journalism to the broader field of communication: “The few who are able to use the machinery of the press as an instrument of mass communication have not provided a service adequate to the needs of the society,” the report claimed. ⁷⁷ Robert Maynard Hutchins, who, as president of the University of Chicago, had attacked journalism education in a 1938 speech to the Inland Daily Press Association, led the Commission. Hutchins’s commission called for the establishment of a citizens’ commission to monitor press performance and established the principle of accountability. This principle later was incorporated into academia through the scholarly work of Theodore Peterson, who expanded on the social responsibility theory of the press. However, during the 1980s, scholars, in retrospect, criticized the commission’s report as a doctrine that “lives along the fringes of journalism education and the newsroom” and had become little more than a slogan “about the public interest.” ⁷⁸

Broadcast Journalism

By 1948, television entered the educational picture, and the University of Pennsylvania partnered with WCAU Philadelphia to offer a television course for thirty selected students. Leon Levy, WCAU president and general manager, told the students in a welcoming speech, “TV, I predict, will cause another sociological and economic change [in the world today].” ⁷⁹

The debate over whether a college education was needed for radio employees followed much the same lines as the earlier debate engaged in by print journalists. Writing in Broadcasting, KFRC radio announcer Harold Bratsberg said none of his colleagues ever attended a “School for Radio Announcers.” He claimed all of his colleagues were ardent students of the “School of Experiment.” ⁸⁰

In a similar but perhaps more typical vein, the Kentucky Broadcasters Association voted in 1948 to form a committee of small market, independent, and network station operators to meet with those in charge of public education leading to active work in commercial broadcasting. Broadcasters took ownership of education, saying they would “survey present courses, recommend a practical approach in training methods where necessary, and work out a system of active cooperation between school officials and Kentucky broadcasters.” ⁸¹

The discussions by broadcasters and educators about the future of broadcast education began formally in 1947, when the NAB (then referred to as National Association of Radio Television Broadcasters) president requested that education leaders meet with industry representatives to “explore the possibilities of formal accreditation of degree curricula in broadcasting.” A joint committee reached consensus on these basic premises:

The committee analyzed offerings at 400 schools and cited 10 of them for progress in developing broadcast curricula. Representatives from the ten institutions were invited to meet, and in 1948, they founded the University Association for Professional Radio Education (UAPRE). The ten institutions were Alabama, Denver, Nebraska, Northwestern, Southern California, Syracuse, Temple, Texas, Tulsa, and the Texas School of Mines. Some of these were at institutions that also boasted some of the best journalism schools, but others were uniquely recognized for their broadcast programs. Six additional institutions joined in 1949, and the group met in conjunction with the NAB. Added to the group were Baylor, Boston University, College of the Pacific, Michigan State, the University of Oklahoma, and the University of Miami (Florida). This group of fifteen universities (the chancellor of the University of Nebraska refused to allow its program to participate) intended to accredit the “bigger and better” schools, but the National Commission on Accreditation (NCA) announced it would not approve additional accrediting bodies. The result was that the group sponsored representatives to ACEJMC, the journalism accrediting body.

The UAPRE languished until in 1955, when at a meeting in Washington, the group voted to dissolve itself and found a new organization—the Association for Professional Broadcasting Education (APBE)—that would include the National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasting (later the NAB) actively participating. Sydney Head, prominent educator and author of widely adopted textbooks in broadcast institutions and broadcast history, was the first president. The organization abandoned the idea of creating its own accrediting body and wholeheartedly became a professionally oriented organization, defining its membership as consisting of NAB member broadcasting stations and degree-granting academic institutions. Academic institutions that offered courses but did not give degrees were considered associate members. ⁸³ In 1956, Head and Leo Martin at Michigan State University argued, “many broadcasters now realize that . . . business enterprises invested with specific social responsibilities” such as broadcasting cannot insure their future without a “steady flow of suitably qualified new personnel into the industry.” ⁸⁴

By the spring of 1957, the association had thirty-three members and the Journal of Broadcasting was established. The association maintained close ties with NAB, and in the 1970s, NAB organized and underwrote a number of faculty seminars on topics such as law, regulation, and international broadcasting. NAB also provided a substantial cash grant to enable the APBE to function. In 1973, the organization changed its name to Broadcast Education Association (BEA). From 1972 to 1991, growth in membership was slow, but the practice of presenting competitive research papers grew. By the mid-1990s, approximately 200 papers and videos were being presented. Divisions also evolved along with these changes. ⁸⁵

During the years of development of a solid national organization, the debates were similar as they had been for print journalism, with the possible exception that broadcasters and educators focused on a range of likely broadcast careers that included writing and editing, producing, business, and promotion. The discussion among print journalists had been primarily among editors and educators and focused on the editorial, not the business side of newspapering. Harrison Summers said,

With few exceptions, broadcasters insist that they prefer to employ men and women who have received a broad liberal education. A few go so far as to tell us that no specific training in broadcasting as such is either necessary or desirable. However, most broadcasters seem to want their prospective employees to have had a considerable amount of training of a definitely vocational type.

Summers said they expected colleges to supply the stations with men and women

who can step into a station organization on the day they graduate as thoroughly trained and qualified announcers or copywriters, as newscasters or news editors, as women’s program directors, as traffic supervisors, as employees in publicity or promotion or merchandising, as time salesmen, as television film editors, or as producer-directors for television. ⁸⁶

Even at this early stage, broadcasters saw the need for educating students for careers, rather than for first jobs, and in doing so urged an understanding of broad principles of the industry and how it functions, along with the requirements of effective programming and an understanding of the characteristics of listeners.

Effective training for professional work in broadcasting should deal not merely with how to do such fundamental things as announcing and writing and production, but also with why certain patterns of action should be followed by broadcasters; otherwise, the college is not preparing its students for the policy-making types of positions which we hope at least that most of our graduates who stay in broadcasting will hold, six or eight or ten years after they leave our colleges. ⁸⁷

In an NAB industry survey conducted in 1959, managers said they had trouble finding qualified persons. Managers said the problem of training lay primarily with the schools. They believed colleges needed to give more attention to the economic side of the industry. Too many schools, they said, emphasized the more glamorous and artistic aspects of broadcasting—producing, directing, writing, and acting—to the detriment of business jobs. They also said schools prepared students for network and large station jobs and did not sufficiently prepare them for small station jobs, where most were likely to begin their careers. ⁸⁸

In 1962, the debate continued. One radio manager complained about students whose

training had been based on inflexible rules, not on solving problems . . . What we should aim for is the inculcation of basic principles from which specific techniques can arise. The best subject for this type of training is the student who has learned to adapt, who recognizes the necessity for change, who perceives the difference between the abiding principle and the transitory technique. He is the student, in other words, who has been liberally educated. ⁸⁹

Despite discussions of what an education should include, in a 1968 study, new entrants into broadcasting said, “management considers nonacademic experience the most important hiring criterion, with a college degree (regardless of major) an important but secondary consideration.” ⁹⁰

The close association with the NAB benefited schools in a variety of ways. In 1966, NAB created a grant program inviting research into all aspects of American commercial broadcasting: social, cultural, political, historical, and economic. During the first three years the program existed, thirty-five proposals were granted awards. (Grant proposals that studied the effects of radio and television advertising on consumer behavior were excluded.) ⁹¹

The tension between practice and theory continued through the 1970s and into 1980. Alan Wurtzel insightfully attacked the problem, arguing the broadcast industry had research needs that the academy could help fulfill and that cooperation would benefit academia and the industry. Wurtzel said academics often master sophisticated research methodology the industry needs, but that theory must be linked with real-world objectives to give the industry manager additional data or options with which to operate. Wurtzel said some academics “are openly disdainful of policy-oriented research” and that acceptance of such is critical to cooperation. ⁹²

In 1983, in yet another article on the subject, industry representatives once again argued they needed academic research. Marshall Ottenfeld, senior vice president and chair of the U.S. Research Operating Committee for the advertising firm of D’Arcy-MacManus and Masius Advertising, said he did not believe that the worlds of academic and professional research were distinct and that his firm was increasingly hiring current and former faculty members to work as researchers. He did warn, however, that if intellectual leadership from the academic community was not accompanied by clarity in presentation, “parallel development will occur and the applied research management will reach into the academic community and selectively extract your colleagues who can and will communicate in a language that is understood.” ⁹³

By the early 1980s, broadcasters recognized the complexity of broadcasting that demanded better pathways to management. The authors wrote in a book published by the NAB:

In the early days, a technology or radio background was important. For a long time, sales seemed to be the best path. Now, in a more complex and functionally interrelated management environment, there appear to be many more paths to the top. Yet, broadcast management is not expected to become the domain of the MBA. Integrating functions as diverse as journalist, producer, sales person and technologist will continue to call for management selection from among people who have learned through years in the business how to integrate the excitingly diverse demands of television broadcasting. ⁹⁴

In this NAB published book, authors were not looking toward higher education—either in broadcasting or journalism—or for MBAs. They related the success of “corporate colleges,” where individuals with management potential were brought in from the stations to learn how to manage.

Public Relations

By 1946, thirty colleges offered forty-seven courses in public relations. Boston University established a school of public relations during the decade. By 1951, there were twelve schools with major programs in public relations. ⁹⁵ A decade later, the number of colleges and universities that offered courses had tripled. In 1970, more than 300 institutions had one or more courses. ⁹⁶

Serious efforts to professionalize the industry began with the formation of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) in 1947, shortly following the first college major offered in 1942 at Bethany College in West Virginia. In 1947, Boston University established a School of Public Relations. ⁹⁷ Public Relations was one of the ten original divisions created within AEJ in 1965, and student chapters of PRSA were established in 1968.

One of the first formal efforts to establish curriculum standards began with the 1973 Commission on Public Relations Education. Scott Cutlip, author of the first public relations textbook and a public relations historian, and James Grunig, who emphasized the importance of theory in the curriculum, led reform efforts in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1975, the Commission on Public Relations Education, established jointly by the Public Relations Division of AEJ and PRSA, listed a series of recommended courses for public relations programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels. At least eight other commissions or studies weighed in on public relations education before the turn of the century.

J. Carroll Bateman and Scott Cutlip co-chaired the seven-person commission that evaluated undergraduate and graduate public relations curricula in the mid-1970s. The commission recommended a broad liberal arts degree, with special emphasis on communication and public relations. It recommended the program be located in a school of journalism or communication and that it adhere to accreditation guidelines that recommended only 25% of a student’s work should take place within the major. The commission stated that public relations faculty needed better preparation. Members of the commission lamented the fact that most educators lacked higher degrees and had little experience in the field. Furthermore, they said, too many programs depended on one person to teach the courses in the public relations sequence. ⁹⁸

In 1982, AEJ and PRSA again joined together to study the state of public relations education. The twenty-seven members of this commission reaffirmed the commitment to liberal arts and reiterated its earlier criticism of public relations faculty. Commission members preferred that faculty have a PhD, do research, and participate in national organizations. They noted that public relations programs were located in journalism, communication, and business programs, but they made no recommendations about the proper location within the university structure. Although they did not recommend specific courses, they listed five areas that since have been universally adopted as the required core for public relations majors and for the chartering of PRSA student chapters.

By 1990, public relations practitioners were operating on a global level, and the International Public Relations Association (IPRA) commissioned a study to standardize public relations curricula across the globe. The IPRA Gold Paper reaffirmed the importance of liberal arts, noted the tension between training students for entry-level jobs and for educating them as managers, and emphasized the importance of ethics. A year later, another PRSA Task Force looked at education but made only modest suggestions. The Task Force recommended high school outreach, visits to the classroom by professionals, and periodic review of curriculum, along with efforts toward continuing education. In 1992, a survey of practitioners and CEOs was reported in a special issue of Public Relations Journal and concluded that public relations education was excellent. Respondents recommended emphasis on writing and speaking skills, internships and courses in the social sciences, especially those related to perception, learning and motivation, persuasion, public opinion, and communication. In 1993, PRSA released a career guide that focused on the skills and qualities needed to advance through various levels of public relations positions.

During the early 1990s, practitioners and educators began to emphasize integrated marketing communications, which became known by its initials as IMC. In 1993, an Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) Task Force led by Tom Duncan and Clarke Caywood from Northwestern University’s IMC program and Doug Newsome, an established public relations educator, recommended an integrated curriculum for advertising and public relations majors. They reaffirmed the need for liberal arts and traditional writing and speaking skills, but they also emphasized the need for solid training in business and organizational behavior, thus expanding the curriculum from a writing, speaking, strategies orientation to one that embraced a broader understanding of the business and organizational world that practitioners were centered in.

The formation of commissions continued through the end of the decade, and in 1999, PRSA commissioned a two-year study headed by an academic and a practitioner. The commission recommended a minimum of five courses with public relations in the title and a minor in a related field, such as business or the behavioral sciences. The members of this commission clearly expected more than a generalized liberal arts education—they used terms that now have become standards in education, such as “competencies” and “mastery.” They recommended mastery of subjects such as social trends, marketing, global issues, organizational change, and management. They listed twenty areas of competency in such areas as risk analysis and cross-gender sensitivity. They also recommended fluency in a second language. At the graduate level, the commission expected even more. At the master’s level, they recommended that students acquire advanced skills in research, management, and problem solving and that they complete a thesis or capstone project.

Rick Fischer, in his analysis of the commissions and studies completed from 1975 to 1999, noted that there was more similarity than conflict between the reports. “The major shifts discerned,” he wrote, “suggest a movement away from simple message preparation and towards managing complex relationships.” ⁹⁹

Arguments similar to those regarding journalism curricula emerged, with scholars and practitioners concerned about the relative importance of theory versus practice. ¹⁰⁰ In addition, where to house public relations was a major question. Some scholars argued that journalism schools were not the best place to support public relations education. Such scholars argued that programs in journalism schools overemphasized journalism and neglected appropriate instruction in social science theory and technique as well as management training. Some even argued that keeping public relations education housed in journalism schools would ensure that students would be trained for the past rather than for the future. ¹⁰¹

In 1987, Indiana University’s David Weaver, then president of AEJMC, publicly stated that public relations should not be taught in journalism schools but rather should be in business schools. His comments to the press provoked an outcry from public relations educators who had fought for appropriate resources within journalism schools, often without success. ¹⁰² Edward Bernays had argued that public relations should be taught within social sciences, and still others agreed with Weaver that it should be placed in business schools.

Advertising

Advertising had been established in psychology, business, and journalism programs, but the growth of the state universities and the anchoring of advertising in journalism schools had spurred increased numbers of students in journalism schools who majored in advertising. As the programs grew, the emphasis on selling and designing advertising for newspapers gave way to a broader focus on media and campaigns. The number of programs in business schools declined, partially due to Ford Foundation and Carnegie Corporation studies of business education conducted in the late 1950s. The foundations recommended reducing the degree of vocationalism and specialization, increasing the liberal arts requirements, and improving research. Partially as a result of these studies, many business schools dropped their advertising programs, accelerating the growth of advertising programs in journalism and communication schools. ¹⁰³ Nevertheless, the debate over whether advertising education should be taught in business or in journalism continued. Much of the debate focused on how advertising and marketing should be combined as a field of study. Looking toward the future, in 1976, the chairman and CEO of DDB Needham Worldwide said,

We must break away from our traditional ways of thinking about ourselves as specialists in preparing advertisements for print and broadcast media and develop the skills we need to become the supplier of all forms of marketing communication needed by our clients. ¹⁰⁴

In an Advertising Age editorial the following year, J. Thomas Russell argued that it was important to look at the fundamental problems of advertising curricula. He examined curricula at the twenty-four ACEJMC accredited advertising programs and found great diversity in requirements and in courses offered. Almost all schools required an introductory advertising course and a creative/copy course. About 75% required media and campaign courses. Many schools required traditional news courses, such as reporting and law. Slightly more than half of the schools did not require a marketing course, although several suggested marketing as a minor. Russell concluded that a major study needed to be undertaken by the American Academy of Advertising to determine a proper curriculum. ¹⁰⁵

Visual Communication

Visual communication grew from programs in photo illustration, as the University of Missouri first referred to its photography course, and then from photojournalism. Missouri hired instructors in photo illustration as early as 1923, and in 1942, the university was the first to establish a photojournalism sequence. Clifton Edom, a longtime faculty member at Missouri, credited Frank Luther Mott with inventing the term photojournalism. ¹⁰⁶ Photojournalism courses expanded during the 1940s. Part of the impetus came from the professionalization of newspaper and magazine photographers, who in 1946 formed the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA). The official publication of the NPPA originated quickly after the formation of the organization and took a lively interest in educating photojournalists. A 1961 survey of ninety-six AASDJ schools and departments of journalism showed that a total of 171 courses in photojournalism were offered, with a maximum of 8 courses available at a single institution. Seventeen programs offered no photojournalism courses. Only 20% of school administrators said they felt a “knowledge of photojournalism as a communications tool is essential for all students in the field of mass communications.” ¹⁰⁷ A second survey conducted almost thirty years later showed photography courses were being offered in 83% of the journalism and mass communication departments and schools responding. Majors existed in 25% of the schools and minors in 3%. About a third offered only individual courses. In 1991, less than 1% of the courses included multimedia or digital photography. ¹⁰⁸

Full-fledged programs were slow to develop. At UNC–Chapel Hill, Stuart Sechriest joined the faculty in 1946 and began teaching photography courses. But in 1978, more than thirty years later, when Rich Beckman came to the school, the equipment consisted of two Speed Graphic cameras, two viewfinder cameras, and a brand new 35 mm Nikon-F camera. Tom Bowers recalls that Beckman bought aquarium thermometers at a pet store to monitor the water temperature to process color transparency film. Twenty years later, the program was almost entirely digital. Beckman was one of the first photographers to recognize the power of digital technologies, and in 1991, visual communication became a separate sequence. Beckman and his colleagues taught courses in graphic and publication design. They developed an entire group of courses that taught web design, coding, and animation. ¹⁰⁹

In 1994, Beckman made an eloquent plea in an issue of Visual Communication Quarterly to establish a board-level joint committee of AEJMC and NPPA members to help advance the cause of photojournalism education. Writing in 1994, he said,

Around the country, photojournalism programs at major journalism programs are dying as the world around them becomes more visual. And only a small percentage of journalism majors take even one photojournalism or visual literacy course. These are the students who will be tomorrow’s editors. ¹¹⁰

In 1998, Southern Illinois University (SIU) reintroduced its photojournalism program that was begun in 1947 and abandoned in 1983, with the retirement of a prominent professor and short-lived changes in accreditation rules that prohibited joint degrees. The Department of Cinema and Photography and the School of Journalism jointly offered SIU’s program. When the program was reintroduced, it was the only public university in Illinois to offer a degree in photojournalism. ¹¹¹

Professional photojournalists made arguments similar to those in other areas of journalism education. They worried about the mix of professionals and academics in journalism schools. In 1996, photographer Jim Gordon wrote that allowing programs to be dominated by PhDs was “wrong-headed.” ¹¹² Bill Kuykendall, director of the University of Missouri’s photojournalism program, said that students at Missouri benefited from a faculty of five, who combined had many years of experience as well as advanced degrees. Kuykendall, who held a master’s degree, argued that his degree gave him the “historical and philosophical” perspective that enabled him to contextualize his thirteen years of professional experience. He also championed the broad education Missouri’s undergraduates received. ¹¹³

Larry Nighswander, a photographer who left National Geographic to become a journalism educator, also made the case for professionals to be involved in journalism education. But his argument was broader—that journalism educators and news professionals too often ignored the visual aspect of—and he used a prescient term storytelling. Visual communication professors were among the first to recognize that journalism was changing, that technology was having an impact, and that being able to communicate visually was becoming increasingly important.

Societal and Press Discord

Discord ran through the ranks of reporters at major media outlets during the 1960s and 1970s. The period was a time of questioning throughout society, and the journalism establishment was no exception. For example, reporters questioned management’s control over their behaviors and content, popular writers and journalism students reacted against the staid 1950s pyramid style of writing, and the public questioned the role of the press.

Journalism educators and journalists created a culture of press criticism that previously had been relegated to single-voiced outspoken critics such as A. J. Liebling or to classically trained academics such as Robert Hutchins. The Columbia Journalism Review debuted in 1962. Its voice was restrained, compared with the Chicago Journalism Review, begun after the 1968 Democratic National Convention, and which working journalists used to criticize management and its policies. Through this period, the press was criticized for not reacting more strongly to McCarthyism, and a period of advocacy emerged from the view of the press as “bedraggled” and “victimized.” Through the 1960s, the press grew more vocal on issues such as Vietnam.

In an address to the International Press Institute in 1965, Walter Lippmann “claimed that journalism was at last becoming a profession, an intellectual discipline.” He set forth a standard that justified and reinforced what reporters had been doing:

This growing professionalism is, I believe, the most radical innovation since the press became free of government control and censorship. For it introduces into the conscience of the working journalist a commitment to seek the truth which is independent and superior to all his other commitments—his commitment to publish newspapers that will sell, his commitment to his political party, his commitment even to promote the policies of his government. ¹²⁷

Authors introduced new forms of writing that mimicked fictional styles and abandoned the 1950s accepted inverted pyramid. When Tom Wolfe introduced a new style of non-fiction, critics called it “parajournalism: the factual authority of journalism and the atmospheric license of fiction.” ¹²⁸ Wolfe’s style revived the “nineteenth-century concept of the journalist as interpreter, advocate, and critic rather than as merely the processor and translator of the words of the powerful.”

In the rebellious mode of the 1960s, More, a magazine of press criticism, scheduled a counter-convention alongside the ANPA’s annual meeting to protest management polices toward reporters. In 1972, 3,000 people joined the counter-convention. The platform claimed, “journalists must be as free from censorship and arbitrary interference by management as management is free from censorship and interference by government.” After the Kerner Commission of 1968 reported that minority status in newsrooms had changed little since the 1950s, attention to journalism’s lack of diversity received renewed attention. Women and minority groups took employers such as the Associated Press, The New York Times, and Reader’s Digest to court. Robert Maynard and others urged the ANPA to set a goal to diversify newspaper newsrooms by 2000. College newspapers and their conventions became controversial, with student protests against Vietnam and questions raised about military advertising.

Within this context, a tension emerged between those who championed the emerging watchdog position of the press and those who bemoaned its adversarial tone. Edith Efron, in The News Twisters, criticized journalists as out of line with mainstream America. Daniel Moynihan called journalists “charter members of the adversary culture, devoting their careers to promoting attitudes generally hostile to American society and American government.” ¹²⁹

In a 1975 issue of The Columbia Journalism Review, Senator J. William Fulbright wrote that since Watergate, the press had shifted away from criticizing policy to skewering people and personalities. He argued the change had led to misplaced journalistic priorities:

If once the press was excessively orthodox and unquestioning of government policy, it has now become almost sweepingly iconoclastic . . . Their ostensible purpose is to bring reforms, but thus far they have brought little but cynicism and disillusion. ¹³⁰

The 1960s also brought enormous changes in technology and diversification of media, with signs that newspapers might not always enjoy the profits they had previously enjoyed. In 1960, the Columbia University Bulletin said it was time for “imaginative experimentation and research.” The goal was not just to solve technological problems but also to “enlarge the role of journalism in advancing understanding and truth.” The author pointed out that rising production costs had “killed” more than 200 newspapers in the United States and increased the proportion of cities without competitive dailies to 94% in 1960 from 43% in 1910. Phototypesetting and offset printing represented some of the first changes in technology for more than fifty years. ¹³¹

Participating in the newfound energy journalism acquired during the 1960s, two young Washington Post reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, in 1972 broke the Watergate story—the now famous break-in at the Watergate Hotel masterminded by Nixon aides to acquire information from Democratic National Headquarters. Cash found on the burglars tied them to the campaign to reelect Nixon. At the same time, enrollments in journalism were expanding exponentially. The coalescence of the enrollment trend and the Watergate event created an enduring myth that young journalists were so inspired by the investigative work of these young reporters that they were flocking to journalism schools. However, Michael Schudson and Lee Becker destroyed the misconception. In 1992, Schudson noted that enrollments in journalism grew prior to the Watergate break-in, and Becker, writing in 1994, documented, “There is clear evidence that Watergate played no role in enticing students to study journalism.” The large jump in communication enrollments occurred between 1970 and 1971, when the federal government modified its classification scheme and introduced “journalism” as a sub-category in “communications.” In 1983, the category was once again modified and labeled “journalism and mass communication.” ¹³²

Other changes in journalism education occurred during the 1970s. The number of students in advertising and public relations increased as did the number of women entering journalism schools. Journalists such as Ben Bagdikian abhorred the tendency to include strategic communication fields in journalism schools and urged that advertising and public relations departments be moved to business schools. ¹³³

Advertising education experienced the same initial identity crisis that journalism had experienced decades before. Debate raged in the trade publications about whether advertising should be in business or journalism schools. ¹³⁴ Writing in the academic teaching journal, Journalism Educator, John S. Wright and Charles Steilen noted that for years, competitive programs were offered in schools of journalism and business on many campuses:

This ambiguous situation cleared up somewhat after 1960 . . . Alert journalism school administrators saw a marketing opportunity and started to expand and promote their advertising major. In some schools of journalism today, the number of ad majors equals or exceeds the number of those majoring in the editorial side of the curriculum. ¹³⁵

Arguments were advanced about the inability of advertising and journalism to co-exist. John Huffman argued that advertising and journalism had fundamentally different worldviews, with “irreconcilable views of the nature of man [sic].” This condition exposes students, he wrote,

to those conflicting codes and the conflicting views of man that they represent within a single context, as though they were not mutually exclusive codes and views, and as though they had a respectable place in a single, unified body of knowledge . . . is it not time they were divorced on at least an academic level? ¹³⁶

Reform in the 1980s

In 1986, James Boylan, first editor of the Columbia Journalism Review and a Columbia alumnus, wrote in a twenty-fifth anniversary edition of the journal that

Back in the early 1950s, when the sixty-four of us huddled over spavined wooden desks at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, we were not given to understand that journalism was a privileged or even a very desirable calling. That we were in a graduate school of journalism proved to be only an ambiguous sign of status, for the curriculum was irretrievably aimed at dissipating dreams of glory.

Boylan wrote that although students learned a great deal about wire services, terminology, and practices of afternoon newspapers, they used exercises dating from the 1930s. “The regimen,” he said, “resembled that of my army basic four years before, both in the insistence on unquestioning acceptance of authority and in the scorn for matters intellectual.” ¹³⁷

In a 1983 article in the ASNE Bulletin, Everette Dennis, then Dean at the University of Oregon, reiterated Boylan’s contention that journalism schools were dinosaurs. Dennis said he was amazed “to find that most courses” listed in a 1928 monograph differed little from journalism school catalogues in the 1980s.” He said structures and formats of the courses in those early years, not only their titles, were “almost a carbon copy” of the syllabus of 1980s courses. ¹³⁸

Dennis marshaled forces to consult an enormous number of scholars, teachers, and professionals and amassed documents to offer a thorough critique of journalism education and a plan for the future. Dennis had become president of AEJMC in 1983. The prior year, the association had changed its name from AEJ to include mass communication in its title, acknowledging the incorporation of public relations and advertising into many programs. Dennis appointed a National Task Force on the Future of Journalism and Mass Communication that worked with and relied upon the work of the Oregon Future Project. Reaction was intense, with some educators and professionals agreeing that it was time for change and others attacking the report as undermining the goals of American journalism and American journalism education.

The Oregon endeavor was the first full-scale assessment of journalism education to be conducted. It was financed with a $70,000 grant from the Gannett Foundation and a $15,000 grant from the Northwest Area Foundation of St. Paul, Minnesota. The sheer number and range of individuals consulted was impressive: 100 teachers of journalism; forty scholars outside the field; all of the nation’s accredited schools of journalism and mass communication; heads of all professional groups represented in ACEJMC; a random sample of University of Oregon alumni; forty industry, professional, and scholarly organizations; and fifty experts on new technology. The Executive Summary of the report concluded, “The general state of journalism and mass communication education is dismal.” The report said most units were “grossly underfunded” and that schools had massive enrollments with “tiny, overworked faculties.” The report further concluded that journalism units “rarely play a major role in the governance of the university and rarely provide persons for the top cadre of leadership.” ¹³⁹ In short, Dennis said, journalism education failed the academic test.

In addition, the report charged that journalism schools “were not exactly centers of innovation,” that they were regarded as “following industry, not leading it,” and that the schools were believed to be the “handmaiden to industry, not its critic or visionary guide.” ¹⁴⁰

The report recommended that schools be freestanding units within universities and that students should take 75% of their courses in the arts and sciences. Their assumption was that two principal goals of journalism and mass communication education should be media literacy and the fostering of freedom of expression.

Probably the most controversial statement of the report was that “the rapid infusion of new knowledge and pace of technological change will push journalism/mass communication schools away from industry-oriented sequence programs and toward more generic mass communication study.” The report’s recommendations echoed earlier strains of thought about senior year and graduate curriculum, arguing that “highly specialized approaches” should be the focus of a final year of a student’s program as well as graduate programs. The report also warned that technological change would require a definite response and courses that advanced new knowledge.

The report also addressed the faculty dilemma of professional accomplishment versus scholarly work and recommended that scholars have more exposure to the industry and that there should be room in programs for highly experienced professionals.

Foreshadowing the emphasis twenty years later on accountability and assessment, the report said, “Specific professional courses need to be organized in coherent modules that have specific outcomes for training stated well in advance and over which students can be tested for competency.” ¹⁴¹

At the heart of the report were three recommendations:

The report revealed that only 26% of journalism/mass communication programs were independent professional schools; another 17% were schools within a liberal arts unit and 35% were departments within a liberal arts unit. Through the 1960s and 1970s, universities were relatively stagnant in growth, while journalism enrollments expanded rapidly and steadily. The report revealed that because of the “steady state” of university enrollments, journalism schools had not benefited financially from their enrollment growths. Increasingly, their enrollment growth subsidized other parts of the university. Thus, relatively small faculties were serving large numbers of students. Little wonder, the report concluded, that journalism schools were not hotbeds of innovation. Overworked faculties, the authors argued, gave relatively little time for thinking about the future.

The report also found that journalism faculties were not active in their universities. In the administrative questionnaire, the report found that 58% of accredited institutions reported their faculty had served in no administrative posts elsewhere in the university. However, there were a substantial number of joint faculty appointments across departments, cross-listed courses, faculty serving on graduate committees in other units, and joint or interdisciplinary programs.

The report also found that 44% of journalism faculty had strong professional experience as well as a strong research interest. Forty percent had strong professional experience but a weak research interest. Only 9% were identified as having weak professional experience and a strong research interest. The remaining 7% fell into a variety of “other” categories.

In questions about innovation, too often administrators saw that the acquisition of new equipment as the primary way to address the problem. However, several commented on a future that would require a more conceptual approach. In an almost clairvoyant statement, Professor Sandra Ernst Moriarty, then at Michigan State University, said,

It will take a massive educational effort to move people from being passive viewers to sorters and selectors. New courses will be taught to use extensive data banks just as we learn (poorly) to use libraries. Media courses will focus on such skills as “how to find out what you want to know” or “how to master the media.”

Moriarty said, “Majors will be a combination of reporters/librarians/data processors. Information majors will take courses in information processing, logic and management of large-scale databanks.” ¹⁴³

Professionals who were consulted often voiced loudly their traditional complaint that students could not write or spell. The report acknowledged this complaint dated to the 1920s and noted that both serious students and most journalism schools did take writing and spelling seriously. The report said it was not going to address the validity of the charge but note its presence. Industry leaders also complained that faculty did not have enough contact with professionals and, as a result, students did not have an overall view of the field. Leaders thought there was too much emphasis on “marginal” journalism courses at the expense of liberal arts, that classes were too large, that schools paid too little attention to identifying future industry trends, that students were not prepared for deadline pressure, that they learned skills at the expense of learning to think creatively, that there was too much emphasis on the sociological approach to mass media, and that students were not provided with managerial skills.

When asked how to improve journalism education, professionals overwhelmingly suggested an emphasis on undergraduate and mid-career education. Only 2% of the respondents suggested an increased emphasis on graduate education, with another 5% preferring an emphasis on an undergraduate/graduate blend. Industry leaders also favored retaining traditional sequences and specializing in one or two areas. Professionals wanted schools to “reflect an accurate picture of contemporary professional practice in the classroom through examples and exercises that use the typical industry standard as a model.” Many agreed that schools should analyze and critique the media as well as conduct research into issues and problems facing the media industries. Almost none thought schools should present an “ideal picture of what the best professional practices should be.” Industry leaders were not only critical of journalism schools but also expressed strong support that they continue. In addition, they readily admitted the industry had not financially supported schools. ¹⁴⁴

In 1982, roughly within the time frame of the Oregon Report, the Associated Press Managing Editors Journalism Education Committee completed a survey of forty-nine educators and journalists, asking what the 1990s would bring or need. The questions emphasized recruitment efforts, quality of students, and admissions standards. On curriculum issues, the respondents discussed writing and editing, management, and liberal arts courses. A few educators recommended conceptual courses. On technology, most educators and journalists said changing technology would not have much impact and that schools should focus on content. Technology was discussed primarily as an issue of having up-to-date equipment. ¹⁴⁵

In sharp contrast, the Oregon Report recommended bringing craft and conceptual courses together to develop integration. It also recommended developing a media laboratory, including courses that addressed the history, systems, and culture of technology, providing computer training and understanding design, technology, and capacity. The report also recommended that schools of journalism and mass communication should become involved in their universities and make it clear that in studying the impact and meaning of media,

we are fostering critical, analytical skills and concepts that are central to what we have always meant by liberal education. In this sense, then we are part of a process which is redefining knowledge and the structure of the academy.

Ben Bagdikian, a prominent journalist with the Washington Post, disagreed with the recommendations of the report. Bagdikian wrote, “It is one thing to criticize incompetent and inadequate education of journalists, but it is another to suggest that the Communications Revolution requires fundamentally new training geared to new technologies and their industrial organization.” ¹⁴⁶ In the late 1970s, Bagdikian joined other media elites in a criticism of journalism schools, arguing that schools were producing more graduates than the industry could use. ¹⁴⁷ In 1985, Bagdikian became dean at the University of California at Berkeley that had chosen a strictly professional path. In 1968, it abolished its undergraduate program and created an autonomous professional graduate school of journalism. The goal was to train professional journalists for both print and broadcast media.

At the time of the Oregon Report, Berkeley and Columbia may have been the only major programs that offered a master’s degree without also offering an undergraduate degree. Stanford placed great emphasis on its research-oriented graduate degree and developed a joint undergraduate major with liberal arts.

The report occurred during a time when the Accrediting Council once again came under attack. Northwestern University and Boston University dropped out of the accrediting process during widely publicized disputes with the accrediting teams and the council. Stanford also had withdrawn and, in 1983, the University of Michigan decided not to seek re-accreditation. Boston University took its complaints to the Department of Education, requesting that ACEJMC be stripped of its authority. Boston’s primary concerns were transparency and accountability. The council was granted a two-year extension but received a stern warning to clean up the process. ¹⁴⁸

Changes in Accreditation

The incremental change from 1976 forward did not satisfy the Department of Education, and in 1983, it agreed to recognize ACEJMC for a maximum of only two years, contingent on seven changes in policy and procedure. AEJMC began its own review of accreditation. As previously mentioned, Northwestern University had ordered a team off campus, refusing to divulge faculty salaries. There also had been a question about Northwestern’s internship program exceeding the allotted 10% of all journalism credit because it provided a full semester of credits for working in the Medill News Service in Washington, D.C. Also, in April 1982, Boston University failed to meet the 75-25 rule and was denied accreditation. The University appealed and ACEJMC granted provisional accreditation “but declined to issue a report of criticisms unless the university accepted the provisional status.” Furthermore, the council released findings about the Boston University process to the media before releasing it to the institution. Consequently, the university withdrew its request for accreditation. ¹⁵³

The council operated in secret until the late 1980s, after pressure from the Boston University complaint filed with the Department of Education and from the national accrediting body forced the meetings open. Even today, the council refuses to release records, including minutes of the meetings, prior to 1988, despite an appeal requesting the council to do so. ¹⁵⁴ However, many of the records are publicly available through collections at the Wisconsin Historical Society and in other university libraries where deans have donated their papers.

The Department of Education requested an interim report to be submitted by July 1984, addressing seven needs:

This time, the council, under the leadership of a new president, Joseph Shoquist, reacted quickly to address the request. The council established the office of executive director, eliminated sexist language from documents, and rewrote standards of accreditation to be less “mechanical and less arithmetic.” The goal was to rely on objectives the individual schools set for themselves, a trend in common with other accrediting bodies. The council heartily endorsed unit accreditation.

Another area that had been long debated and would continue to be controversial was the percentage of courses that could be taken within journalism. As schools expanded to include public relations, advertising and broadcasting, the debate widened. Newspaper editors wanted journalism courses to focus on writing and editing, with liberal arts courses that would allow students to gain an understanding of economics and other fields. However, broadcasters argued that liberal arts might not be the best background for someone running a cable franchise, and advertising and public relations faculty wanted to expand the coursework into business and marketing for students specializing in those areas. ¹⁵⁶

The interim report made to the Department of Education in June 1984 described the following accomplishments: The team and unit chair would be asked to evaluate the work of the team, individuals from ACEJMC member organizations and accredited schools would be invited to serve on teams so that the process would not continue to be dominated by a few individuals, training for site teams was instituted, a committee was appointed to review the appeals process, a finance committee was appointed to put ACEJMC on a sound financial basis, institutions would be notified by phone before information was released to the media, and news releases would be issued regarding all ACEJMC accrediting decisions. The council also equalized representation between educators and industry representatives. That fall, the council adopted a statement on human rights as a response to affirmative action pressures. At the fall meeting the council also put into place twelve new standards, or criteria for journalism accreditation. They included governance and administration, budget, curriculum, student records and advising, instruction/evaluation, faculty, internships, equipment and facilities, faculty scholarship, research, professional activities, public service, graduates and alumni, and minority and female representation. ¹⁵⁷

In a single year under Shoquist’s leadership and under pressure from the Department of Education, “ACEJMC saw as much change as it had in all of its previous thirty-eight years combined.” ¹⁵⁸ In 1985, the council hired a new executive director and implemented a fund-raising plan. The executive director, Susanne Shaw, has served continuously since January 1, 1986.

John Lavine, former dean of the Medill School at Northwestern and publisher of a group of Wisconsin papers, succeeded Shoquist, serving from 1986 to 1992. Lavine was credited with putting the council on a solid financial footing. During his tenure, the council raised the dues for schools, the fee for accrediting visits, and the dues for professional organizations. Robert Giles, publisher of the Detroit News, succeeded Lavine and served until 1998.

Probably Giles’s most controversial contribution was his desire to create a two-tiered system of accreditation, with some schools recognized for exemplary practices. There had long been resentment that small schools with three or four faculty received the same accreditation recognition as did large, wide-ranging programs. Nevertheless, deans recalled the discussions around the tiered system as one of the most contentious periods on the council. The fights that emerged between the smaller and larger, more prestigious schools, were reminiscent of the old battles between ASJSA and AASDJ. Giles wanted accreditation to mean more than adhering to basic standards, and he thought exemplary designations could signify enhanced quality.

Charges of coziness between administrators and leaders of teams and the inconsistency in reports continued to haunt the council. The Knight Foundation provided $300,000 in 1999 to establish training for site team members. The goal was to involve more people, including women and minorities, into the process. From 1992 to 1998, 60% of the team members were male. Ramona Rush, pioneer in research on women and journalism education that led to AEJMC’s Commission on the Status of Women, participated in a training workshop in the early 1990s. But she said she was never asked to go on a site visit. “She contended that only individuals who subscribed to the status quo of the accrediting system were invited to participate in the process.” ¹⁵⁹

ACEJMC now was recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA), formed in 1996, to replace earlier national groups. CHEA advised the Accrediting Council that accreditation should be consultative and not prescriptive, and it should be based on student learning and development, not resources. The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education was exploring outcomes assessment, a process that would dominate accreditation debates well into the twenty-first century.

Role of the Foundations

One of the issues explicated in the Oregon Report was the lack of outside funding for journalism programs. This challenge was not a new issue. In 1961, Charles T. Duncan, president of AEJ, lamented the state of journalism education, noting that additional schools had become accredited but that enrollments were down across the nation. He was particularly distressed that metropolitan editors did little to champion the cause of journalism education. He praised the Hearst Foundation and the Wall Street Journal’s Newspaper Fund for their contributions to journalism education. ¹⁶³

In 1984, most programs still received a high proportion of funding from their universities’ general funds. There were exceptions. Columbia was founded with an endowment from Joseph Pulitzer, Walter Annenberg’s significant gifts had dramatically enhanced the fortunes of the University of Pennsylvania and University of Southern California programs, and Minneapolis publishers created the Murphy and Cowles endowments at the University of Minnesota. Multi-million dollar Newhouse gifts to Syracuse established a strong program there. Stanford had successfully raised money for endowed chairs. Multi-million dollar gifts in the 1980s from Knight-Ridder and Scripps-Howard had enhanced programs at Stanford and Ohio. The Gannett Foundation made contributions to a variety of universities, and the Hearst Foundation supported writing awards for students. Dow Jones (Newspaper Fund) also supported students. Support from other foundations dribbled in, as did support from media companies, directed both at individual universities and at the journalism associations and the accrediting body. Throughout the 1980s, deans such as Richard Gray at Indiana and Richard Cole at UNC–Chapel Hill sought contributions from media companies and dedicated alumni. However, there was no large-scale support from communication industries.

Two conclusions from the Oregon Report, one, that journalism schools should be organized as independent schools separate from liberal arts, and two, that media industries and foundations should support schools in greater measure, attracted some criticism, especially from those who believed that receiving money from corporations would shape the contours of journalism education.

Stephen Reese captured the argument in a simple paragraph:

Journalism on many campuses has left its traditional home in the arts and sciences. It has joined with other communication and media fields to create independent professional schools within the university. In doing so, it has found it easier to enter into symbiotic relationships with the professional community, an alliance that has brought new resources but also corresponding pressures to satisfy those constituencies. ¹⁶⁴

Reese pointed out that traditionally strong schools such as Wisconsin and Minnesota had lost ground to professional schools such as the Universities of North Carolina and Missouri.

The Close of the Century

By the close of the century, it was clear that newspapers steadily were declining in household penetration and that technology was going to play a role in the direction of communication. Despite the noise and lights of the 1980s and 1990s, and despite some changes in journalism education, the news industries and journalism educators had remained in conflict.

Industry representatives continually repeated that students were not skilled enough in writing and editing and argued that in addition to these skills, the most important educational framework should be in the liberal arts. News industry professionals rejected ties to the broader study of communication. Organizations such as The Poynter Institute and the American Press Institute provided opportunities for educators to interact briefly with professionals. The accrediting council sought to accredit a variety of large and small schools, enforcing basic standards but, if not outright rejecting innovation, certainly creating no framework for it. In 1994, Everette Dennis, who had been instrumental in trying to reform journalism education for ten years, wrote,

The same tired debates continue decade after decade. These range from whether communication and journalism schools should exist at all, to the relative balance between theory and practice. The debate is deeply class-conscious and apparently unending. Potential employers who sniff that they prefer Ivy League graduates can be dismissive and destructive forces. To date, the lessons of other professional schools such as business, law, even education have not been learned by journalism and communication schools, which behave uncomfortably on campus or in the professional world, depending on their “port of entry” or venue in education. ¹⁷⁴

Journalism educators and journalism professionals continued to struggle with the idea of journalism as a profession. Courses still carried “craft” or “skills” titles. All argued that journalism is essential to a democracy, but few could agree upon an adequate university approach to achieving that goal.

University of Missouri School of Journalism

Walter Williams’s School of Journalism evolved into the Missouri School of Journalism, positioning itself as a “combination of academic excellence in the classroom, hands-on training with established professionals, and a rich history of success. Each level breathes, grows, and is ever-changing with new developments in the industry, in our country and in the world.” ¹⁷⁵ In 2012, the undergraduate program offered thirty-two different interest areas listed under the “Majors” heading. These concentrations included International Journalism, Convergence Television Reporting, and seven areas of Strategic Communication. The program offered a smorgasbord of narrowly focused job aspirations and intellectual interests. All students also were required to take a core journalism curriculum that includes Principles of American Journalism, Cross-Cultural Journalism, News, and Fundamentals of Multimedia. The school is organized as an independent unit, led by a dean who reports to the provost. The school has retained its title as a School of Journalism and never included the “and Mass Communication” title that many journalism units adopted. Nevertheless, Missouri has offered advertising since its founding and has broadened the program to include a wide-ranging strategic communications program. Missouri’s two-year MA program allows students to specialize in more than twenty areas that include international, investigative reporting, and convergence journalism. Students design much of their own program, although all students are required to take courses in quantitative and qualitative research. Missouri also offers joint degrees in journalism and law, as well as an online MA.

Missouri prides itself on what it calls the “Missouri Method” that combines liberal arts with extensive hands-on training. Since its founding, the school has published a daily print newspaper, the Missourian. In recent years, the school has made a significant shift to digital content. Connected to the school is the ColumbiaMissourian.com, a news site that is updated constantly; MyMissourian.com, a citizen journalism website; and the blog “Missourian Neighborhood News,” the hyperlocal arm of the Missourian. The school also produces an online magazine, weekly radio show, and webcast, “Global Journalist.” It also owns a public radio station and a commercial television station. It maintains three student-staffed, faculty-led advertising agencies and produces Vox Magazine, which focuses on entertainment, the arts, and contemporary issues locally.

University of Wisconsin at Madison

Willard Bleyer’s vision at Wisconsin shaped a course different from the highly professional and skills orientation at Missouri. The school’s mission states,

We believe that professional communication education should be grounded in a deep foundation of liberal arts education—and that to graduate leaders, we must prepare our students not just for the jobs and industries of today, but for the ever-changing mass communication landscape of tomorrow. ¹⁷⁶

Note the emphasis on “communication” education and the “mass communication landscape.” Wisconsin’s undergraduate curriculum represents some of the recommendations issued by the Oregon Report in the 1980s. The School, which chose in the 1980s to abandon accreditation, says it focuses on “skills” over “medium,” with little emphasis on industry-specific models. Undergraduate students have a choice of two concentrations: Journalism/Reporting or Strategic Communications. Students also complete the general education requirements for degrees in Letters and Science and a breadth requirement—a selection of courses in social science and humanities designed to provide extensive understanding of societal history and issues.

The graduate program is designed for students “interested in intensive examination of mass communication as they prepare for careers as university teachers and researchers or professional communicators.” Professional masters’ students develop a portfolio rather than completing a thesis as they develop an area of specialization outside of journalism. The school promotes its faculty’s expertise in research, citing evidence that they are among “the most prolific and most frequently cited researchers in the world.” ¹⁷⁷

The school follows what it lists as the “Wisconsin Idea,” a commitment to extending the boundaries of the classroom to those of the state, the nation, and beyond—ideas well in concert with Willard Bleyer’s belief that a public university should help to educate its populace, as well as its students. The school has established a reputation in quantitative research based on the social sciences, as well as research in media history and law. Although a school in name, it is organized within the College of Letters and Science and is led by a director who reports to the Dean of Science and Letters.

Columbia Journalism School

In 2002, when Lee Bollinger took over as president of Columbia University, he halted the search for a new dean that had been underway at the Columbia Journalism School. Bollinger created a task force to determine what a modern school of journalism should look like, and he wrote,

We live in an age in which the system of communications is widely understood to be undergoing revolutionary changes and, at the same time, is the critical element in forging democracies, markets, culture, and the phenomenon of globalization. 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. ¹⁷⁸

When the task force concluded its work, Bollinger concluded,

Bollinger further discussed the need for specialists—journalists who had deep knowledge in specific fields. “The educational goal ought to be to develop a base of knowledge across relevant fields that is crafted specifically for what leading journalists need to know,” he wrote. Bollinger suggested that Columbia’s traditional one-year program might not suffice, and that if the professional compensation was so low relative to educational expenses, the university ought to build a solid financial aid program that “will change this socially dysfunctional incentive structure.” ¹⁷⁹

In 2002, Nicholas Lemann, a prolific writer with a bachelor’s degree from Harvard, was appointed Dean. Lemann had a sterling professional reputation. He had served as executive editor of the Texas Monthly and managing editor of the Washington Monthly. He was a national staff reporter for The Washington Post, a national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, and a staff writer for The New Yorker. At Harvard, he was the president of the Harvard Crimson. In addition, he had published several books on U.S. history, including The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America. Shortly after being appointed dean, Lemann wrote in Liberal Education that journalism schools, to be properly situated in a university, must

teach future members of the profession things that they will find useful and enriching across their long years of professional practice, but that they would have a hard time acquiring just by working for a few years in the field.

Lemann acknowledged that it is difficult to indulge in distanced reflection on a profession’s social role while on the job. He argued, “A professional school should not strive to be a miniature-in-entire of the professional workplace itself; rather it should teach what the professional cannot.” Lemann also said faculty should represent the university’s research mission—not through academics from other fields but through professionals who are active members of the profession—and make significant contributions in their roles as faculty. ¹⁸⁰

Lemann strived to implement many of Bollinger’s ideas, which harkened to Pulitzer’s original intent and to the creative early curriculum that Columbia abandoned after only a few short years. Lemann added a second optional year to the traditional single-year program at Columbia, with an opportunity for students to specialize in specific subject areas. However, students were not merely sent to other departments or schools to soak up knowledge. Professors in other fields joined with journalism school professors to integrate knowledge in ways specific to journalistic practice. Seriously hampering his effort was the high level of tuition at Columbia and students’ reluctance to remain outside an income-earning position for two full years. Few students took advantage of the second year. Lemann also gave attention to scholars and championed the cause of history and research in the curriculum. Lemann stepped down from the deanship in the summer of 2013.

Critiques of Journalism Education in the Twenty-First Century

With the decline of the newspaper industry during the first decades of this century, journalism education became a target for both traditional journalists, who saw their world slipping away and for entrepreneurs who believed they could succeed without formal training in journalism. Critics argued that innovation had come from companies such as Google, not from journalism schools. Schools had indeed been slow to change, yet the previous comments in this document indicate that as early as 1984, with the Oregon Report, educators were arguing that industry sequences should be abandoned. In doing so, they received harsh criticism from the profession. However, as advertising and public relations personnel argued for integrated marketing communications, schools were slow to incorporate those ideas. Nevertheless, many schools did shift to include a strategic communications program. Journalism schools struggled with how to incorporate social media and how to address the new digital age. It took the accrediting council until 2013 to fully focus on digital competencies in its requirements.

Some of the harshest criticism of journalism education came from the Knight Foundation, which emerged at the turn of the century as the top foundation funder of journalism schools. By 2012, the foundation shifted its emphasis away from mid-career funding and creating chairs. According to Eric Newton, the foundation became less interested in creating new chairs after Alberto Ibarguen joined the foundation as president in 2006. Newton said they felt the chairs no longer were “cutting edge.” There are indications that the foundation became somewhat disillusioned with the program because chairs did not produce the kind of research or programs that earned public notice. When new chairs were created, they usually depended on a restructuring of other Knight monies granted to a university in the past. Knight funneled little new money into the program but demanded increased reporting requirements and became highly involved in structuring the activities of each chair. In 2009, there were twenty-three Knight Chairs in fifteen U.S. states at twenty-one distinct universities. In 2013, The University of Miami and UNC–Chapel Hill were the only two universities with two Knight chairs. Fourteen of the universities are public research universities and seven are private. Fifteen of the universities are located east of the Mississippi River and six west of that divide.

In its effort to exert more control over the activities of the chairs and to infuse universities with an emphasis on the digital world, Knight actively worked with universities to recast chairs as they became vacant and use them to address a variety of digital activities. At the same time, universities with Knight chairs were contributing large sums to the endeavors. For example, in 2012 at Pennsylvania State University, the university contributed $266,000 in additional support for the Knight Chair, the chair’s activities, and the Center for Sports Journalism that is directed by the chair. Contribution from the Knight endowment was $58,400. ¹⁸¹ “We are honored to have a Knight Chair, just as we want to maximize its impact with additional funds,” said Doug Anderson, dean at Pennsylvania State University. This is not an atypical arrangement for institutions that have Knight chairs. Although older chair agreements often included funding for at least a portion of the chair’s salaries, Knight is relying increasingly on universities to contribute large sums to maintain the chair and its activities.

In 2005, while retaining its emphasis on journalism and communities, the foundation created a transformation fund to address “big ideas.” In 2006, the foundation launched the Knight News Challenge, a $25 million, five-year contest open to all participants for “an idea for using digital media to transform community news.” These funds were not directed toward journalism education, although some individuals at universities won challenge grants. Eleven million dollars were awarded to the first-year twenty-five winners in May 2007. In 2010, twelve media innovation projects were named winners, at a total of $2.7 million. The program has continued, with an emphasis on information and community engagement.

In an interview in 2009, Hodding Carter III, former foundation president, said the foundation is “without a doubt right now the major force in foundation work to try to put together the practitioners of the new journalism forms with enough money to help them do it better.” Carter relayed that the foundation emphasis was to “do” journalism “better” for “the sake of community-building as much as for journalism.” Carter revealed that there was no longer any doubt about journalism being the single focus, but that the foundation always saw itself as “responsive to the communities” in which the Knight newspapers existed. Carter also admitted that the foundation has gone from being “passively aggressive about not looking for publicity” to “aggressively seeking publicity.” He also stated that the foundation is an “aggressive self-promoter [so that] people would come to you, and know where to come.” ¹⁸²

In a speech in 2012 at Middle Tennessee State, Eric Newton, former journalism program officer at Knight and then senior adviser to the foundation’s president, offered the following advice to journalism program leaders as he advocated for what he called the “hospital teaching model”:

Along with these suggestions, however, Newton also claimed that while you could not run a hospital without doctors, you could run one without research, ignoring the fact that hospital practice is based on science developed by those who do basic scientific research. He used this critique to argue that top professionals are as important to journalism faculties as are top scholars. As a means of circumventing university and accrediting agency requirements for terminal degrees, Newton suggested a professional doctorate. However, aside from allowing the professional candidate to do a journalism project instead of writing a dissertation, he offered no curriculum that would distinguish this degree from doctorates now offered at journalism schools. The critique was reminiscent of industry critiques of the 1980s that demanded that journalism programs focus on skills rather than on the larger issues of journalism’s role in a democracy. However, journalism schools that had been slow to change were easy targets.

Linda Steiner, then president of AEJMC and a professor at the University of Maryland, responded to Newton’s criticism. “I teach at University of Maryland, which is a ‘j-school.’ Maryland has worked very hard to come up with a relevant program that meets the full needs of students and also meets and even anticipates the needs of journalism,” said Steiner. “But my point is that the conventional j-school is rare these days: Some programs have journalism (including, often, PR and advertising) and other media fields . . . Different schools have different understandings of their priorities and their mission.”

Steiner said many faculty members not only have professional experience but also a commitment to research, and they are able to help design a curriculum that trains students not only for the industry but also for “digital living and working.” She added,

Some programs teaching journalism and other media fields/professions have been slow to change, but sometimes this reflects their decision, which is not unreasonable, to avoid [appearing] merely reactive to the newest gadgets, in order to respond thoughtfully over the long haul. ¹⁸³

“[B]ecause professional journalists face this loss of credibility and authority, they are lashing out at journalism educators for not doing more to help what professionals call ‘the industry,’” she wrote. Steiner, who is also the director of research and doctoral studies at the University of Maryland’s journalism school, pointed out that many journalism researchers with a PhD started out in newsrooms and criticized Newton for ignoring this issue:

He is correct that degrees are not more important than competence. But the Ph.D. should not be regarded as “disabling,” as if people who spend five or six years to earn a Ph.D. and launch a research trajectory suddenly forget everything they learned while in the newsroom, and become, as professionals suggest, uniformly unable to teach professional courses.

Curricular Revisions at Major Institutions

Journalism schools are changing—some slowly, some more quickly, and with various degrees of agility. Some are almost entirely oriented toward professional acuity, with little attention paid to communication theory. Some, like Missouri, provide a large umbrella for journalism and strategic communication. Others, like Maryland and Arizona State, focus almost exclusively on journalism. Some, like Columbia, emphasize specialization in various fields as a complement to emphasizing the production and distribution of news. When the newspaper business collapsed in the mid-2000s, many schools partnered with local news entities or reporters to generate news outside the traditional campus media model. Urban reporting models can be found at Berkeley and Columbia, and statewide models can be found at Arizona State and Maryland. UNC expanded its exceptionally strong undergraduate program in multimedia to the master’s level; introduced courses in such topics as Internet law; established interdisciplinary programs with business, law, computer science, and public health; and created a digital research news lab. The school also partnered with the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures and the Department of English and Comparative Literature to offer a certificate in Spanish language journalism, helping prepare students for one of the fastest growing media sectors. North Carolina’s two-year professional master’s program retains requirements in theory and research, along with professional skill development. UNC also added a blended campus/online MA program in technology and communication, designed primarily for working professionals. Coursework is offered online, but students meet together with their instructors twice each year.

In the 1980s, journalism schools often added “and mass communication” to their names, but as the media market became more segmented and targeting the audience both more popular and more possible, educators began to doubt whether “mass” communication applied. Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism became the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. After much national publicity about the upheaval at Medill, Dean John Lavine wrote in a booklet about the curriculum that Medill’s journalism curriculum would retain traditional values of journalism while using digital tools to tell stories more effectively. He also noted that Medill’s Integrated Marketing Communications program was the only program of its kind “that turns the tidal wave of user data into strategies to enhance the reputations of brands through compelling interactions and messages that engage.” ¹⁸⁴

The undergraduate program afforded more electives to students, along with better interaction, multimedia integration, journalism residencies (internships), and a commitment to global perspectives and diversity. The curriculum, in addition to a variety of skills oriented classes, includes requirements in media law and ethics. The master’s in journalism program includes a heavy dose of techniques, with requirements also in ethics and law, business for journalists, a specialized subject such as health and science, a class in media economics or consumer insights, and a major reporting project. A global journalism quarter also is available. The master’s in integrated marketing communications combines theory and practice, and focuses on creating an understanding of customers and stakeholders, an analytical approach to marketing communications strategies, and the mining of data and learning to connect directly with consumers. Courses cover topics such as customer communities, media economics, marketing finance, database analysis, crisis management, global marketing, and investor relations. ¹⁸⁵

Berkeley’s graduate program in journalism remained tightly focused, with about 110 students participating each year. Major changes in curriculum involved a shift in focus from specialized, individual projects, in an environment where students worked with individual professors, to a more collaborative approach with a focus on urban reporting, public health, and international and human rights.

Many other institutions initiated changes that addressed convergence and digital content. Increasingly, visualization/informational graphics is being explored, going beyond traditional photojournalism or digital documentary approaches. These efforts combine traditional reporting, visual messages, and data to provide deep thinking about complex issues.

Accreditation Meets the New Century

In 2003, the Accrediting Council revised the twelve standards that had been adopted in 1984 into nine standards to be applied starting in 2005–2006. The council maintained its basic approach to diversity, which was to focus on representation of women and minorities in faculties, student bodies, and curricula. Schools had been out of compliance on diversity more than on any other issue. The council also made a decision to create standards “so basic” that they would apply to all schools, rejecting the idea that standards should address provisions for differences among public versus private, large versus small, or schools with a regional emphasis versus those with a national concentration. The most significant change was to require schools to create plans for assessment of educational outcomes, to collect information, and apply findings from the assessments to improve curricula, instruction, and learning. Through 2012, the assessment standard replaced the diversity standard as the standard most often viewed as out of compliance. Significant concern also surrounded how equally the indicators for the standard were applied during site visits. In addition to the nine standards, the council also adopted twelve Professional Values and Competencies.

With the revision of the standards, the council mandated that graduate programs would be reviewed separately but according to the same nine standards applied to undergraduate programs. Recommendations for accreditation also would be made separately, so that it is possible for a different status to be assigned to graduate and undergraduate programs at the same university.

Another significant and controversial change was in a 2004 revision of principles, designed to take into account accreditation by schools outside the United States. The council removed references to the First Amendment, “referring instead to the freedoms and principles underlying it and expecting programs abroad to teach and promote these principles.” ¹⁸⁶ Critics were concerned that such an approach would dilute adherence to First Amendment principles of free speech and assembly.

As the council began a new decade, it faced significant financial problems. Between 2005 and 2010, six of fifteen industry organizations dropped their memberships, usually citing cost as a factor. Organizations that represented diversity also decreased. As a result, in 2010, academics outnumbered professionals almost two to one and minority representation decreased to one. ¹⁸⁷ Later that year, the council doubled the annual dues from $1000 to $2000 for accredited programs to try to compensate for the operational deficits of 2009–2010 and 2010–2011. In 2012, the council revised its fees for professional and educator organizations. Professional organizations had paid according to their annual budgets while academic organizations had received a reduced rate. With this change, all professional and educator member organizations would pay an annual fee of $3,000 for each seat on the council. The council also required that all representatives from educator organizations would have to be affiliated with accredited programs, representing a significant shift from representation that included unaccredited programs—a provision that had been in place almost since the beginning of accreditation.

In 2012, the council approved revisions to the accreditation standards. Responding to a need for additional credit hours within journalism programs to teach digital skills along with traditional courses, the council reduced the number of courses required outside the unit. It also changed the proviso that those hours be taken in liberal arts, requiring instead that units meet their institutional requirements for general education and liberal arts. That change was significant in that it allows journalism students to take courses in business schools and in computer science that may not have been listed as liberal arts courses in specific institutions. Changes also extended the number of hours that could be counted for internship credit to six semester hours, noted that online classes and accredited online degree programs would be reviewed and held to the same standards as those on-site, and required units to publish student enrollment, retention, graduation, and job placement data on their websites and to update it annually.

Graduate Education in a New Century

As university journalism programs grapple with the new digital world, graduate education takes on additional importance, both for retraining journalists who entered the profession when the word digital was rarely heard and for undergraduates who may have advanced technical skills but seek additional specialization in subject matter or the business skills to enter the world through entrepreneurship. It is critical, however, that educators and professionals recognize that digital skills, while necessary, do not constitute professional journalism.

Graduate programs, especially master’s programs, had for many years been given scant attention by industry leaders, academics, or the associations that formed around journalism education. Although PhD programs had a distinct purpose—to train others for the academy—master’s programs varied in scope across the various public and private institutions. In the early years, editors had concluded that journalism could not afford to support the hiring of people with graduate degrees and had opted to support undergraduate degrees because the younger students would accept lower salaries.

However, other discussions stressed the need for graduate-only programs. In a journalism administrator’s workshop in 1989, Brian Winston, dean of the School of Communications at Pennsylvania State University, presented the outcome of a small group discussion on journalism education. The small group meetings followed an Allen Neuharth lecture on what journalism education needed to do in the 1990s. Neuharth, the founder of USA Today, at the time was chair of the Gannett Foundation. Winston tentatively reported that his group “felt that we would probably have to look at the question of whether or not journalism was appropriate at the undergraduate level, given that some other professional fields are abandoning degree programs in favor of offering professional master’s degrees.” ¹⁸⁸

In 2002, Vartan Gregorian, president of the Carnegie Corporation, convened a group to discuss revitalizing journalism education to meet the “crisis of confidence” occurring in journalism. Gregorian believes that education, libraries, and journalism are critical to the state of a democratic nation. After this gathering, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation expressed an interest in partnering with the Carnegie Corporation to fund work on the issue. In 2004, Gregorian requested McKinsey & Company to conduct a study of news leaders’ opinions of journalism education. McKinsey interviewed forty top executives, who emphasized the imperative for journalists to master “a new level of analytical skills that are needed to explain a complex world.” ¹⁸⁹

On May 26, 2005, Gregorian and Hodding Carter III, then president and CEO of the Knight Foundation, announced the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education. Carter was succeeded a short time later by Alberto Ibarguen. This program was the first widely publicized national effort to focus attention on graduate journalism education.

The Initiative identified three primary efforts:

These objectives emerged from discussions among the leaders of five major institutions with a focus on graduate degrees. The initial schools were Berkeley, Northwestern, Columbia, and the University of Southern California—all private schools with a focus on master’s degrees. Also included in the group was Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center at Harvard, represented by its director, Alex Jones.

A few years later, the Initiative added seven additional members: Arizona State’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism, the University of Missouri School of Journalism, the University of Nebraska–Lincoln College of Journalism and Mass Communications, the UNC–Chapel Hill’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication, the Syracuse University S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, and the University of Texas at Austin College of Communication. The addition of these universities, with strong undergraduate programs, shifted the focus of the initiative so that the discussion often addressed undergraduate, as well as graduate issues.

In early 2011, News21 and the Knight Foundation commissioned JM Advisory Group to perform a review of the program’s impact. They found that news industry leaders think journalism education has improved over the six years of the Carnegie-Knight Initiative. Carnegie-Knight schools were mentioned most often as “inspiring new attitudes” about journalism education. In addition, the participating schools reported they had transformed their teaching of digital journalism during the five-year span of News21. ¹⁹⁰ Some, such as the UNC, had moved into the digital arena prior to the Initiative, providing skilled web designers for publications such as The New York Times. Some had begun to transform their photojournalism programs to address digital issues, and others had not entered the digital arena at all prior to the Initiative. One conclusion from the Initiative was that digital journalism involved serious data work, investigative reporting, and visualization skills—all based on a deep knowledge of the subject.

In 2012, the Knight Foundation and Arizona State continued to fund News21. Universities were invited to send students to Arizona for summer work on the national News21 project but were required to contribute a $10,000 stipend for each student. Other News21 projects that remained situated at their home universities have continued using a variety of funding methods generated locally. UNC’s Powering a Nation project, for example, remained in place as late as the summer of 2013 and continuously seeks funding from alumni and other sources to maintain its authoritative stance on energy in the twenty-first century.

Journalism Education in the Digital World

A broader understanding is essential for journalism schools to survive in this new age. Journalism education has, to a great degree, ignored the larger contours of the digital age—the rise of an information society and the nature of convergence that goes beyond multi-platform applications and transition to mobile devices. Journalism schools are rarely taken seriously at Google or other centers of media technology. Much of the serious study of the Internet is taking place outside schools of journalism.

Geoffrey Cowan, former dean of the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communications, spoke of the power of a great idea. He cited the mission statement written by Ambassador Annenberg, dated March 4, 1971:

Every human advancement or reversal can be understood through communication. The right to free communication carries with it the responsibility to respect the dignity of others and this must be recognized as irreversible. Educating students to communicate this message effectively, and to be of service to all people, is the enduring mission of this school.

In 2014, as USC University Professor and Director of the Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership and Policy, Cowan incorporates Annenberg’s statement into his own: “We live in the midst of a disruptive and exhilarating era for civic discourse, news, and information. The keys to the future will be in the hands of those who understand and practice communication leadership–the ability to communicate effectively across multiple platforms and to adapt with agility to new technologies, changes in government regulation, and the continually evolving global marketplace. ¹⁹¹

Stephen Reese, associate dean for graduate studies at the University of Texas at Austin, eloquently incorporates these ideas into a model for journalism education:

Developing a new professional model must be done collaboratively, with the best intellectual leadership informed by a close knowledge of professional practices and problems. We need to challenge the simplistic professionalism that assumes its own validity and prevents turning on itself the kind of questioning that journalism excels in directing at others. Journalism should be a model of a societally and professionally engaged field, bringing the best thinking of the social sciences and humanities to bear on its issues. Beyond the tired debate between academic and professional lie more interesting discussions about broader reforms, for which journalism education can provide useful guidance. ¹⁹²