Abstract
Reflecting recently on the programs in the college where he had worked for many years, a retired dean told me that the undergraduate program was doing fine. So, too, was the doctoral program. However, the master’s program was another matter. It was not getting much attention, and it was not thriving.
The former dean’s sentiments appear not to be his alone.
Master’s-level programs have been declining or, it seems, suffering from benign neglect.
“We think it is unfortunate that in recent years, despite many happy developments in journalism education, a general retreat from graduate programs has occurred,” wrote Jean Folkerts, John Maxwell Hamilton, and Nicholas Lemann in Educating Journalists: A New Plea for the University Tradition.
To read the complete report, please see http://www.journalism.columbia.edu/system/documents/785/original/75881_JSchool_Educating_Journalists-PPG_V2-16.pdf
Between 2002 and 2013, there was a 43.1-percent decline in the number of accredited master’s degree programs with a decrease from seventy-two programs to forty-one, the report noted: “The number of schools offering such degrees dropped from 52 to 27, a 48.1 percent decline.” The numbers reflect programs accredited by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications. The report specifically focuses on professional graduate programs.
The authors added that many schools may decline to seek master’s program reaccreditation because they may not wish to deal with the new, more demanding standards that require schools “to make a detailed separate evidentiary case for the worthiness of their master’s programs.”
Interestingly, this decline in the United States in master’s-level education for journalists is matched by a huge escalation in journalism education, including graduate-level education, outside the United States. Great Britain is a case in point.
The Educating Journalists report, published in October 2013 through the Carnegie-Knight Journalism Initiative, argues that graduate education is important for journalism schools and for journalism because
“graduate education is a standard dividing line between a profession and a skilled trade,”
“strong graduate professional education helps keep journalism schools as separate, freestanding, relatively independent units within universities,” and
“only in graduate programs are journalism schools forced to conceive and deliver the entirety of a journalist’s education, which raises the intellectual bar.”
Master’s degree programs in journalism attract different types of people—those who major in journalism at the undergraduate level; those who major in some discipline other than journalism and who want to pursue a strictly professional master’s degree; those who do a master’s as preliminary to a doctoral program, often at different universities; and those who have no intention of pursuing a doctorate, but who, for a variety of reasons during or after the master’s program, decide on a doctoral degree. The motivations of each group undoubtedly complicate the offering of a single, one-size-fits-all master’s in journalism.
Often, programs that attract candidates who have an undergraduate degree in journalism require those students at the master’s level to minor in a liberal arts area, for example, history, political science, or some other subject. Programs that attract candidates with an undergraduate liberal arts degree often require master’s-level students to take all their credit hours in journalism. Advising on degree requirements is of critical importance to all these students, regardless of their undergraduate degree.
Further complicating the debate about what should constitute master’s-level education in journalism is the perennial debate about journalism as a profession; about content matter, skills, theory, and research; about whether journalism should be licensed (please see Joseph Weber’s Essay in this edition); and about the centrality of journalism to the university mission.
When, for example, have we heard of business schools concerned about business as a profession, about whether marketers should be licensed, and about the centrality of business to the university? It is taken for granted that a successful business school is integral to the success of the university and of the business community. It should be possible to say the same of our schools.
In this period of rapid change when journalism and related industries have been at the forefront of technological innovation, the hybrid discipline of journalism is—and should be perceived as—critically important to the university. The interdisciplinary focus, the critical nature of journalistic inquiry, and the evolutionary nature of the discipline imbue it with an importance equal to that of other professional schools.
Unlike business schools, however, journalism schools have focused more narrowly on what journalism is rather than on areas that parallel the various business subdisciplines of marketing, management, leadership, finance, accounting, and so on.
Perhaps it would be worthwhile for journalism schools to explore specialization in sub-disciplines that mirror those of business schools so that the MA or MS in journalism will be as valuable as the MBA.
If graduate programs in journalism gain status similar to that of graduate programs in business, journalism faculty can be unapologetic for—and indeed be positively confident about—their place in the Academy. The intellectual underpinnings of the discipline will be respected, and graduate degrees will be more valuable and valued.