Connecting the Dots between Journalism Practice and Communication Scholarship

Abstract

Walter Gieber's news writing class required a pre-enrollment typing test in 1968. hit a respectable 49 WPM (after deductions for typos and misspellings) and was typecast as appropriate as a San Francisco State College journalism major. Today, journalism and mass communication education continues to be type-cast, though rarely based anymore upon hand-eye coordination. Enlightened programs consider dexterity in libraries; the ability to access public records; and attributes drawn from a deep well of cultural, artistic, educational, civic, and scientific experience to be better predictors of success than typing talent. Not everyone is enlightened. A colleague in the sciences told me recently and in no uncertain terms that journalism students learn process. A minor in the earth sciences, my colleague said, would round out journalism education with substance. If by process she has in mind ways of knowing, an understanding of the lenses through which knowledge, fact, and belief are shaped and bent, proficiency in the crafts of the communication professions, more than a passing familiarity with the consequences of our work as writers, editors, visual producers, and teaching and research scholars, then so much the better. don't think, however, that that's the stereotype of journalism and mass communication education she has in mind. Nor is she alone among university colleagues in her perception of journalism and mass communication as a program of simple skill acquisition with little to draw on or offer from the realm of discovery and scholarship. The very nature and breadth of journalism and mass communication practice and instruction arouse an array of perceptions. Even insiders can have difficulty connecting the dots among the fields and disciplines our colleges, schools, and departments embrace. A short article in the 28 November 2004 Sunday NY Times illustrates the point. Business Week editor Steven B. Shepard was identified in a bylined story as CUNY's choice as founding dean of the newly announced CUNY graduate journalism program. Cross-town, Columbia University's prestigious graduate school of journalism had garnered significant attention when it added an optional two-year master's program for students who want to go deeper than a traditional one-year professional degree. The Times CUNY coverage raised the obvious questions: How will the schools compare? What type of program will CUNY offer? Columbia University president, Lee Bollinger, typecast two kinds of journalism school habitues. I think [Shepard] falls nicely between those who want training on the day-to-day aspects of journalism and the communication theory types, Bollinger said. think that know what Bollinger means in his first reference. Preparation for work at dailies-and weeklies, monthlies, and the continuous update demands of the Internet environment-benefits from knowledge and craft across several domains infused into a practice-based curriculum. The allusion to theory types is more difficult to parse. While most today accept the need for at least a line of connection between theory and practice, theory type continues to carry the vaguely disparaging aura present in references to others as type A, or in learning from a journal editor that your data analysis contains a type II error. The dotted line between theory and practice in this light isn't broken. It's illusory. Practice and theory don't connect when the connection is made grudgingly. But they should. Theory type is an old bugaboo. It used to fall within the rubric of green eye shades and chi squares. Real journalists wore green eye shades to filter out the harsh florescent lighting that hung above the city desk. They were tough, practical souls. They smoked and had contacts at police headquarters. They were smart like Rosalind Russell and Gary Grant in the Ben Hecht film classic HJS Girl Friday. They got the job done. Chi squares, by comparison, lacked useful experience, wore herringbone, and received enlightenment from a slide rule and a t-test. …