If I were king of grad school

If I were king of grad school here, I would try to make things not so shitty. I would be realistic. I wouldn’t play the school off as an institutional leader when it’s clearly behind the times. I’d make sure the school respected it’s graduate students. Here, it seems, we’re second class citizens. Ninety percent of the classes are shared with undergraduates. We are quarantined to research courses that have no bearing whatsoever on the news gathering business. What is so special, then? What is the attraction, if all you’re getting is a glorified undergraduate education? Dude, I’ve already got a piece of paper that says I have a BA. Why did I give up my whole life to come to a place that doesn’t care about me or my colleagues? It’s frustrating, maddening and it makes me sick.

MediaBistro’s East Coast Bias

Just as ESPN thrusts the Yankees and Red Sox down our throats season after season, so too does MediaBistro have an East Coast bias. MediaBistro, a site dedicated to journalism and other media news and information, has a regular feature called j-school confidential. It’s supposed to chronicle the journey of j-school through a variety of voices. But, believe it or not, the travails of a Columbia or NYU J-student doesn’t always connect with those of us who aren’t toiling away in huge media markets. Sure, they have one girl from Ohio U who writes for this feature, but the vast majority of writers are from schools in New York.

Why am I so bugged about this? Well, first off, most of the content is totally uninteresting. Secondly, when they began this feature and were calling for writers, I sent a note saying how much I’d like to participate. One great (?) thing about my school is that it lacks institutional snobbery. I think those of us in small markets, who are taking the bull by the horns, could actually give some insight as to what happens at j-school. Knowledge and success isn’t limited to New York.

But I seriously doubt we’ll see J-School Confidential branch out to include us rubes out in sticks.

Why I’m pissed at j-school

A long time ago I decided to throw away my successful career in public relations to go to graduate school and become a journalist. I still feel it’s the right decision, but I think the school I chose may have been a colossal mistake.

I’ve always heard good things about this school. In the last national j-school rankings, back in the mid-90s, it was ranked in the top 10. Boy, I thought, if I went to a top 10 school, that would be quite a feat. After all, I’ve never been much of an academic.

The school prides itself on having a great program. It says it’s a leader in multimedia education; it says it makes students great writers and reporters; it says it has a tier one student paper; it says is has amazing faculty. Let me address these one-by-one.

In one semester, we spent approximately two classes learning about multimedia. I learned how to frame shots in a camera and how to dub audio. That’s pretty much it. Will there be more to come? I hope so. The school offers multimedia production courses and boasts of its state-of-the-art multimedia newsroom. The newsroom is cool, but it’s really just a classroom with a bunch of Macs and flat screen TVs tuned to CNN and MSNBC. The school paper has next to no multimedia features and the school news broadcast is terrible. It’s not the anchors fault; they’re students and they’re learning. But I would at least expect to see some sort of semblance of a professional newscast; the graphics are awful and the production looks like it came from a high school newscast. Multimedia is so important to those us who want to be scribes. Teach me!

I think I’m already a strong writer — this blog won’t prove that — but I was looking forward to honing my skills. I took a writing course this semester. I learned how to layout advertisements, write business letters and press releases (not too helpful, since I worked in PR for years before I came to school), and other non-news writing. We spent a week or so on actual news writing. I did learn the value of a nut graf, but other than that, I found little value in the class. As for reporting, I have not learned a lick about reporting since I arrived at journalism school. I can lay out a helluva an ad though.

The student paper sucks. If I have to read another story about gettin’ fucked up and chicks who wear Ugg boots again, I’ll scream. I lost all respect for this paper when I read a front-page story featuring a guy whose last name was spelled two different ways throughout the story.

As for the professors…they’re all nice people. And they’re experienced. Boy, are they ever experienced. The majority of professors here have worked at this school for 30 years or more. One woman has taught here for 40 years! When she started working, they still used Morse code to file copy. I mean, come one. If you’re claiming to be a leader in journalism, find me someone who has actually worked at a newspaper in the last decade, someone who can speak about the real world challenges the news business faces and how newsrooms are responding. If I wanted someone who could tell me that William Randolph Hearst was a stone fox back in the day, I would have invented a time machine to see for myself.

The professors also have massive egos. Not all of them; I’ve found some I really like. But I see a big power struggle between professors and they’re always looking to have their egos stroked. If it’ll get me a good grade, I’m happy to comply, but I think it’s petty and juvenile.

But I’m done with the first semester. We’ll see if I care to stick around for the next three. I hope I haven’t thrown everything away to bask in the genius of ancient, egocentric professors who won’t teach me how to report.