Let’s take a logical walk through this column: Traditional
media are dying, not because people hate news, but because newspapers (and TV
stations) enjoyed monopoly status for so long that they no longer can turn 30
percent profit margins for stock holders who would invest in toilet seats if
they turned a profit. Thus, ugly whackings are continuing throughout the land,
with many good journalists finding their asses fired at the point in their
lives where they can a) no longer get a good second career going and b) find a
job that will pay them what they had gotten used to making. Scheer’s question:
Why do we still have journalism schools if we don’t have places to put the
people out there now, let alone all these new people who are coming down the
pike?
The fallacy here is multi-fold: First, journalism schools aren’t
responsible for making the market. They are responsible for teaching people a
skill set that can be plied in a variety of trades. Sure, I’ve had kids who
went into traditional media, but I’ve also had kids who went into completely
different directions, but felt ready to do so based on what they learned in
journalism school. I had a kid go into counter-terrorism for the government,
another went into a federal research program, a third who works in tourism and
the list can go on for pages. The one that always got me was the
counter-terrorism student who told me that what I taught her in the student
newspaper newsroom was what helped her do her job well. I didn’t get it, but
then she explained it to me and it made sense. We really are teaching
transferrable skills like critical thinking, effective communication,
interpersonal interactions and research. We’re not a pure trade school where
we’re teaching lead type maintenance.
Second, and more importantly, why is it that we’re asking
this question of journalism as if it is the only major that is in trouble? Is
there now a massive market for philosophy majors? Take a run through a college
catalog and you’ll see a whole bunch of majors that don’t have a direct
attachment to a specific field, but we still get kids wanting to major in those
things. How about all those “starving artist” art majors? Also, if I’m not
mistaken, a lot of manufacturing jobs are getting cut, but you don’t see trade
schools being told, “hey ease off the graduations, will ya?” Exactly what the
hell are college kids supposed to major in? Is there this wild, untapped bin of
jobs that kids are just overlooking? Everything in the economy is in the
toilet, so why not pick something you WANT to learn and stick with it?
Finally, the dumbest argument is that journalism schools are
essentially creating a pyramid scheme in which younger people are replacing
older people and we should some way be ashamed of that. We’re not the only
field in which people are looking at the idea of trading in a 30-year vet for
several 20-year-olds. Dad took early retirement due to a golden handshake deal
meant to get some of the older guys to leave so newer guys could come in at a
lower rate of pay and they could infuse some new skills into the company. (OK,
it was probably mostly the money.) Mom often hears how many freshly minted
grads could be hired with her salary if she’d just retire. (Never mind that
she’s running circles around her younger colleagues. Apparently, money is
easier to measure than quality.) In addition, if we were to STOP turning out
grads, would this stop? Probably not. They’d pick up even less qualified people
who don’t learn the skill, but were still amazingly cheap.
The reason that Scheer is suddenly alarmed is because this
stuff is now happening in his field. Richard Pryor was fond of saying that the
word “epidemic” was only applied to the country’s drug problem when it started
happening to white folks, too. For years, media wanks clucked their tongues at
other businesses that seemed unable to handle financial issues well or turn out
more grads than the field had room for. Now that it’s happening to us, rather
than sack up and become innovative, Scheer would have us all give up.
If that’s really how you feel, Pete, feel free to pony up
your job. I’m sure there are couple 22-year-old kids out here at my paper who
would be more than capable of writing just as stupid of stuff as you are.