For the schools across the country that train the next generation of journalists, it is not news that the media world has changed around them.
Jobs for graduates have been growing scarce. Media companies that are hiring expect candidates to not only write but blog, tweet, take photos, shoot video — and be capable of jumping on the next big wave of media technology.
“It puts journalism schools in a hard place, trying to prepare students for media jobs when the market for media jobs has shrunk,” said Lynda Kraxberger, a professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia’s School of Journalism, who teaches students multiplatform “convergence” journalism. “So everybody is trying to predict where things are going to be in five or 10 years.”
That means the University of Colorado is hardly alone in making drastic changes to its journalism program to keep up with the drastic changes taking place in the media-jobs market. In its statement announcing the “program discontinuance of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication,” the university pointed to other schools — such as Rutgers and the University of Wisconsin — that have revamped their programs for the times.
The University of Michigan axed its traditional journalism program in the mid-1990s after realizing it was turning out far more graduates than the job market was absorbing. The university replaced the program with a broader “communication studies” department, which takes a more academic look at media platforms and how to use them.
The idea, said Susan Douglas, a professor and the department’s head, is to spend less time teaching students the how-tos of journalism — which can be learned on the job, the school reasons — and more time providing students with versatile critical-thinking skills that can lead them into a wider range of professions.
“It gives them, I think, a broader platform from which to launch themselves,” Douglas said.
At the University of Missouri, home to one of the nation’s premier journalism schools, the transformation has been less dramatic. But Kraxberger said the school has steadily increased its new-media offerings and forced students to develop more versatile skill sets.
“Employers know that they don’t know what the future is going to hold,” Kraxberger said. “They’re all trying to maximize their resources.”
John Ingold: 303-954-1068 or jingold@denverpost.com
