Deadening Silence

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Step Up, J-Schools!

“[J]ournalism schools are not adequately engaged with the great public debates over the future of their core sector. Business school educators are regularly interviewed on NPR or in national business magazines about the state of business education, and its contribution to the crisis in confidence in business ethics and economic performance. Medical school professors are similarly engaged with their relevant publics. Not so with journalism teachers.

“Yet arguably, the performance of journalism schools has something to do with the current sub-par performance of the profession. And the performance of journalists working in independent, high quality media has a lot to do with the fate of our American democracy.

“As journalism professors and deans set their priorities for 2009-2010, the invisibility of J-schools should be near the top of our agenda, otherwise we risk paying a terrible price for our inattention to the big picture beyond our classrooms.”

—Ernest J. Wilson III
Dean, Annenberg School for Communication
University of Southern California
August 2009
(Click here.)

Editor’s Note: Them’s as can, do. Them’s as can’t, teach? Right? Bullshit.
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