Education, Journalism

Origins

For decades, the idea of formal education for journalism struck many publishers and editors as both unnecessary and perhaps even harmful. The best place to learn journalism, they argued, was in a newsroom. Broad knowledge, an ability to write, and a willingness to work long hours was required—not hours in a classroom studying theory. On the other side of the desk, many faculty argued just as strongly that “trade school” training was not what higher education should provide. It took some time and effort to overcome these feelings—and neither has entirely disappeared.

The first individual journalism courses were offered by a few different schools in the late nineteenth century but the first organized program sequences, let alone degree programs, only appeared in the early twentieth century. The University of Illinois began a four-year program in 1904, and Wisconsin began providing a journalism sequence two years later. The first journalism school was formed with a vocationally modeled curriculum at the University of Missouri in Columbia in 1908, followed four years later by the Pulitzer-supported journalism school at Columbia University in New York (it became graduate-only in 1935). By 1910 the University of Washington and New York University had begun journalism programs as well. All of these programs centered on practical courses in reporting, writing, and editing and some had close ties with campus newspapers. A few offered courses in the history of journalism as well. Some—Wisconsin was a pioneering example—held journalism-centered classes to no more than a quarter of total college credits, encouraging if not requiring a broad liberal arts (especially social sciences) immersion as well.

As the first attempt to organize an association of college journalism teachers took place in 1912, there were 32 schools offering courses; seven of these had departments while three (Marquette University followed the University of Missouri and Columbia University) had formed schools of journalism. Five years later, the first organization of journalism program and school directors was created.

Publications began to define the boundaries of the developing academic field. The first issue of the Journalism Bulletin (later Journalism Quarterly) appeared in 1924. Over the next decade it would become a peer-reviewed scholarly publication. Willard G. Bleyer of Wisconsin published his Main Currents in the History of American Journalism in 1927, providing a historical basis for more systematic academic courses across the country. As with most journalism histories into the 1960s, Bleyer utilized a “great man” approach, centering on important publishers and editors. A very different landmark came a decade later with Alfred M. Lee's The Daily Newspaper in America (1937), which for the first time focused the economics and social impact of the news medium, broadening the horizon of what could and should be learned. Annual conventions of journalism teachers slowly grew larger and showcased an expanding variety of both applied and academic research efforts, including work in public relations and advertising, as well as radio broadcasting.

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