I dispute the better educated part. Most modern journalists have been brain washed. They couldn’t work a simple logic problem if their life depended on it
Thank you. They probably got their journalistic credentials from public school elective courses. I remember when I was at school you had a journalism class and the teacher who ran it was a flaming liberal. Even used to call Israel a racist state in class and said that the real reason we fought the Vietnam war was fought to advance white supremacy. No wonder liberals want to require licensing for blogs.
And that is the crux of the issue. Logic is not taught anymore. Instead we have people grasping at the latest emotion driven slogans.
'The Earth is Melting'.
'Who needs borders?'
'Pay everyone a livable wage'.
'Black lives matters (unless they are being taken by abortion or other blacks)'
'Free Medical care for everyone!'
etc
I concur—and I’m a J-school grad.
Journalism is an easy major, if you have any degree of writing and speaking skills. Learning to write for digital platforms (or broadcast) can teach you how to express ideas succinctly and accurately. You can also hone speaking skills that are useful in describing issues, concepts and potential solutions.
But that’s about all a J-school education provides, in terms of positive influences. On the negative side, there’s too much emphasis on context, i.e., presenting information through the desired, progressive lens, so the “news” has the inevitable liberal slant.
There’s also the matter of editing skills (or the lack thereof). Most J-school grads may take only a single course on copy editing, so their ability to correct and improve their writing is marginal at best. Most broadcast journalism students are far more proficient that assembling the video portion of a “package” than writing the accompanying script. Try this experiment: next time you’re watching a local TV news broadcast, listen to the narration or pull up closed captioning, and see how the “words” relate to the images.
Finally, the vast majority of aspiring journos have no real expertise in the subjects they cover, unless they happen to be an ex-lawyer assigned to the court beat. Take a gander at the next Pentagon press briefing on CSPAN and listen to some of the questions. You’ll quickly discover that even the “veteran” defense reporters really don’t have a clue about the military—and the same holds true for journalists covering business, the economy, education and dozens of other topics. They lack both the experience and the education to do the job properly.
Ironically, journalism skills can be a career enhancer in other fields. My writing and speaking skills served me very well as an intel analyst and briefer and many employers (in a variety of fields) list good communication skills as the top thing they look for in new hires. Unfortunately, many lack the basic education (in other topics) that allow them to fully leverage those talents.