Graduate Degrees in Journalism and the MBA

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 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 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/sys- tem/documents/785/original/75881_JSchool_Educating_Journalists-PPG_V2-16.pdfBetween 2002 and 2013, there was a 43.1-percent decline in the number of accred- ited master's degree programs with a decrease from seventy-two programs forty- one, the report noted: number of schools offering such degrees dropped from 52 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 programs.The authors added that many schools may decline seek master's program reac- creditation because they may not wish deal with the new, more demanding stan- dards 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 jour- nalists 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 education is important for journal- ism schools and for journalism because1. graduate education is a standard dividing line between a profession and a skilled trade,2. strong professional education helps keep journalism schools as sepa- rate, freestanding, relatively independent units within universities, and3. only in programs are journalism schools forced 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 disci- pline other than journalism and who want pursue a strictly professional master's degree; those who do a master's as preliminary a doctoral program, often at differ- ent 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. …