Frustrata
RE: Columbia’s new Master of Arts Journalism program.
Dear Mr. Lemann,
I see this statement in the New York Times today about you finding students in this new Master’s program “better jobs at higher salaries.” Here’s what it says:
“To assuage concerns about tuition costs, Mr. Lemann promised that financial aid would be available for most students and said the school would also help them find better jobs at higher salaries.”
First, I’d like to say that I’m impressed by the promise of financial aid availability; to my recollection, it wasn’t exactly so available when I was there. Not to mention the $700 we all had to give the school to “hold” our positions in the upcoming class. It was called “an administrative fee,” and it did not go toward our tuition.
Anyway.
I mostly wanted to ask how you plan to help students “find better jobs at higher salaries”? Because as I recall, any help I received toward finding a job consisted of applying on my own to some of the job listings on the school’s website, and little help beyond that.
As for you helping find these higher salaries, how do you propose to do this? Will you be negotiating with our future employers to raise the pay for the industry?
Mr. Lemann, I sincerely hope you do what you say here. Otherwise, this is a whole lot of, well, spin. And I know the J-school would never teach that. Right?
Sincerely,
Former Student and Irritated Graduate (one and the same)
posted by TK @ 10:29
4 comments
4 Comments:
the idea that we must remain where we are is something of a misnomer.
what is a journalist anyway?? is it merely an observer?? do modern journalists keep their personal opinions out of their writing in favor of protecting the public objectivity??
do sites like this qualify as journalism -
http://www.indymedia.org/en/index.shtml
Uh, thanks for the totally relevant, gramatically interesting post, anonymous.
i am having my own journalism problem.
http://freemit.blogspot.com
i want to stab something. or cry. i can't decide.
Wow. That sort of goes along with "don't accept a gift from a source," only a million times worse, squared.
I admit to having only got the gist of the situation up there, s., but it sounds awful. I recall an Egyptian man insisting he buy me a bagel during our interview years ago--I was in school, I was doing a story about the man's jewelry store being robbed--and knowing that I could possibly go to journalistic hell if I accepted it. I also knew the man was on the verge of pitching a fit if I didn't, so...
My point is just that it's a hard line if the school gets so much from the endowment--but are they really about to make a deal with the devil? All I know was that eating a bagel with cream cheese in the Bronx did not affect how I have since written about jewelry stores, Egyptian men or the borough. Could students at MIT say the same if their program is funded by a media comglomerate?
Can Slate.com still write with barbs about the Washington Post, now that they are owned by the paper? (See Jack Shafer's interesting essay on what Slate will do in its indentured state; it goes something like--we will keep a SHARPER eye on WaPo now...)
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