The proliferation of journalism degrees in the UK brokered by considerable demand for the product has coincided with the biggest downturn in the profession.
This will no doubt lead to many disappointed graduates not being able initially at least to pursue their chosen career.
What is the solution?
Well there are too parts to this problem.Universities have a responsibility to tailor their output to the job market.Not just in journalism but across the board.The drive to send as many people down the degree route will result in a generation of dashed hopes.Coinciding with the recession,the market is simply not there.
This has led to the criticism of universities of following the doctrine of bums on seats.The introduction of top up fees in 2006 has extended this philoophy.
As for journalism itself,the universities will say that they are simply responding to demand for courses.
Yesterday saw a controversial article appear in the Times Higher Educational supplement in which Tim Luckhurst, professor of journalism at the University of Kent said that
there was “an element of fraud in journalism education and Universities are conning students by accepting them on journalism courses when they have no realistic prospect of working in the profession.
There is a certain truth to this but that can be addressed by changing the content of courses more in line with the skills that are required.The emphasis on shorthand for example needs to be looked at and the career path of preparing a student for a trainee ship on a paper must also be examined.
These should be replaced by the cottage industry skills of blogging and freelancing as well as using social media for promotion.
Another possibility would be to combine journalism with another skill so that the aspiring journalist is no longer "jack of all trades master of none" but has a subject area with which to write.
Course leaders reading this will say that we are in a employment blip but there are structural changes taking place and universities need to adapt and tailor their output to them.
2 comments:
Good post. Don't think journalism lecturers aren't worried about our students graduating into a downturn. We are, and we deliver a practical course which has had a good record of getting students into jobs. As I've commented elsewhere, the "bums on seats" mentality of management doesn't help. There are certainly students on most journalism courses who wouldn't make it in the industry even if it was booming. Good blog -I'll link to it if you'd like to link to mine http://predocsblog.blogspot.com/
thanks for the comment Sara and glad you agree with some of the sentiments.
You are correct about the bums on seats mentality.From talking to various lecturers it is forced from above and it applies across the board not just in journalism.
I appreciate that many lecturers are just as concerned about the situation
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