Training for journalists, continued.

Elevated from the comments. By reader "sab":

John S Knight, the grandfather of the late lamented Knight Ridder News, and also publisher of my hometown paper (a tiny paper, but the Knight Ridder flagship) used to say that he really didn't want to hire journalism majors at all, but that he thought it was a bad idea to exclude from his hiring pool so many applicants who had always wanted to be journalists (i.e. journalism majors.)

In other words he thought their training was not helpful, but he hoped their desire to be journalists and their own personal efforts could overcome the limitations in knowledge and training caused by majoring in journalism instead of something more useful (history, economics, any science degree.)

I haven't been to journalism school, so I don't really know what they offer and whether it is of value. But I do know that whenever I ask people whether or not I should go back to school in journalism to further my career I am always told to save my time and money -- even by somebody who has a masters in journalism.

I think that colleges should certainly offer classes in journalism. I think some training would have helped me immensely. Just not years of it. If there are workshops covering different areas of the craft and ethics of reporting, I'd take them. Degrees? Not so much.

Recipes for better journalists

Is it better for reporters to have formal training and subject expertise in their beat? Or is it better for them to go to journalism school and take courses in media studies and ethics and all that before they're allowed near a press conference?

Well, I guess I don't have a horse in this race. I started with both no particularly applicable expertise for my current beat (health primarily) AND no formal education in journalism. In addition to all that, my paper gave me zero training. I had to look up the about.com page on journalism to get up to speed on the lingo.

But of course, I like to think that journalism where my liberal arts education stands me in reasonably good stead. During my time at Amherst I've taken classes in chemistry, economics, psychology, art, english, anthropology, film studies, and horticulture (at Smith College, thanks to the five-colleges exchange program.) I've read my Freud and Foucault and have written enough papers to know how to communicate my ideas. I've also taken enough science classes to know what stupid questions to ask and not be afraid of numbers. Although I have to say I've probably learned more about economics and politics through my blog than I did (or would have) through my school courses, that's really kind of moot because I don't have to deal with those issues.

When you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And thus the wonk thinks that journalism needs more wonks, the j-school major thinks that journalism needs j-school majors and inevitably the liberal arts college graduate...well you know.

Honestly though, good reporting is not rocket science, it's hard work and experience (n.b. I'm not saying that I am a good reporter, by the way. Not by a long shot yet.) I honestly don't think the difference between a good reporter and a bad reporter is the background. Lets just go back to Mark's original example here: how to give context for a statement that is clearly untrue (i.e. "the earth is flat"). The reporter is not allowed to simply say "He lied," but there are a multitude of ways to communicate this sentiment in ways that are more concrete and convincing (not that anyone really need the convincing in this example). Am I the only one left who thinks that it is better for the reporter to back up their statements with sources than to leave things to bald statements?