What do you tell your daughter who wants to be a journalist? On the future of journalism and journalism education in the United States
By Kenneth Starck / While still living at home, your daughter has completed all of her mandated schooling. She is now seriously thinking about life’s next important step. Not surprisingly she decides to extend her learning by attending university. The next question follows: What to study? She reads a lot and writes well. Surprisingly, perhaps, she actually seeks advice from her father—me, a former journalist (newspapers), former journalism professor and, for more than twenty years, a journalism school administrator. Aware of the massive convulsions occurring in the field of mass communication and, most particularly, journalism, I am hard pressed to offer enthusiastic endorsement to enroll in university to study journalism. This essay is an attempt to formulate a thoughtful and realistic answer to your daughters’ question: Should I study journalism? continue to article