Henry Bowles’ Jan. 17 column assailing the Medill School of Journalism could not have been more right. Many of new Dean John Lavine’s pronouncements are troubling.
At the heart of Lavine’s vision is the fallacious belief that print journalism, as it exists today, will be extinct in no time. Citing newspapers’ falling circulations, Lavine’s Media Management Center argues that Medill graduates are unprepared for an industry that is being turned on its head.
The new Media Management Center director, Michael Smith, came to my History and Issues of Journalism class last year and said newspapers need to be “blown up” (yes, direct quote) in order to be saved. In their place should be magazines or tabloid-sized newspapers that appeal to readers with short articles and attractive pictures.
In other words, newspapers need to start looking like the RedEye, or else. And journalists need to be trained for an environment in which the RedEye is produced by the same people as the 10 p.m. news on WGN-TV. (Both are owned by the massive Tribune Company).
Certainly, circulations are falling, corporations are strengthening and technology is revolutionizing how people get their news. I don’t deny that newspapers need to change.
But I question whether serious, high-quality newspapers are destined for extinction. Experts predicted that newspapers would die with the rise of radio, when TV hit the mainstream and when Al Gore invented the Internet.
Michael Kinsley, founding editor of Slate and the former opinion page editor of the Los Angeles Times, offered a much more plausible prediction in a Jan. 7 Slate article. Once newspapers stop charging for their product, circulations might level off, Kinsley says.
I agree. Because most Internet news sources and television are free, and because newspapers derive nearly all their proceeds from advertisers, it might be time for print publications to become free. Will it save the troubled newspaper? No one can know for sure, but basic economics suggests it might; cutting price increases demand for a product. Kinsley’s proposal seems better than turning every newspaper into the RedEye.
Even if newspapers do disappear, one would be hard-pressed to say that a good old Medill education would be obsolete. The skills required of a good print journalist would still be valued tremendously.
Consider the rise of online publications Slate and Salon. Did their staffs go through a convergence-style journalism education? Doubtful. Do they require their writers to understand marketing? I don’t think so. Yet these publications employ some of the best writers and reporters in the business.
If Medill is going to teach more convergence and marketing, something has to be cut – and that something is a serious focus on writing and reporting.
Convergence can prepare students for certain types of journalism, so it should be an option. But by no means should it be taught to everyone. Lavine’s proposal to provide all freshmen with digital cameras and video cameras as reported in The Daily on Jan. 4, would be a scandalous waste of money.
If Medill imposes convergence and marketing upon everyone, students will be less prepared for the serious journalism that will inevitably go on and is necessary for our society to function.
David Spett is a Medill sophomore. He can be reached at
