Comments on: The fastest-dying industry in America

By: 24.110.104.227

24.110.104.227 — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 15:49:31 +0000

As a 38-year veteran of print media, now retired, and a J-grad, I would urge prospective journalism majors to do intensive research before they pile up $50,000 to $100,000 in student loans on a journalism degree. Find a school with a youngish faculty but with a track record of recent professional experience in all sorts of media — print, broadcast and online. Hunt down and interview at least a dozen young alumni and find out from them the strengths and weaknesses of their college work. Determine which schools are producing important investigative pieces of professional caliber. Journalism for both print and online boils down to fact-gathering, organizing your material and presenting it in an engaging way to a diverse public. Even if every newspaper closed tomorrow, that’s still a talent sorely needed by government agencies, corporations and nonprofits. Besides honing your writing skills, find an area of the liberal arts that captures your heart. Take courses in that area so you have some substance and the beginning of a specialty. Logic, rhetoric, psychology, sociology, economics — all of these are valuable add-ons to whatever journalism courses you take. And during the summer, find a job, internship or volunteer slot where you can put the training to work. If you find the journalism workplace too nervewracking or repulsive, instead of exciting or inspiring, then switch majors by your junior year and have fun on Wall Street.

By: leo yang

leo yang — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 05:13:52 +0000

Yes. You are absolutely right. Not for students, for those in working already should also think of their situation as well.

By: Robert Niles

Robert Niles — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 13:37:04 +0000

The data was pulled from U.S. government reports, not simply LinkedIn member profiles.

By: Jan Shaw

Jan Shaw — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 15:15:49 +0000

The link to the study is nice, but the study summary was unclear. One comment indicated that it might be based on Linked-In member information. Do you know the details??

By: 134.68.38.250

134.68.38.250 — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 11:31:52 +0000

This was a problem when I was in a journalism graduate program ten years ago. Newspapers were held up as the ideal form of journalism, but then upon graduation, one found that working journalists did not consider journalism school to be any kind of “training” at all. Newspapers in particular were not concerned about any kind of education; all they wanted were clippings of published writing. They were especially amused that anyone would be stupid enough to go to graduate school to become a journalist. It was very discouraging to find that my career counselor and an employment agent both had BAs in “journalism” and that all the working journalists thought journalism school was a joke.

By: 168.13.14.5

168.13.14.5 — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 10:29:09 +0000

Nice post. It serves as a sobering “reality check” for any soon-to-be high school graduate/college student who’s considering a career in any area of media, not just journalism.