Schultz Column About Journalism Students Elicits Strong Reactions

By: Dave Astor More than 120 people -- most from the media field -- e-mailed Connie Schultz by mid-afternoon Thursday after she published a column headlined "For Future Journalists, It's Cash Not Causes."

In the Thursday column, The Plain Dealer of Cleveland writer quoted various journalism professors. One told Schultz: "We're losing so many hard-news students to public relations, advertising, and marketing. They just want to make money." Another said of students: "The thought of starting out at $25,000 or $30,000 to expose corruption and champion the underdog just doesn't do it for them. They have no interest."

Schultz, the winner of this year's Pulitzer Prize for commentary, said "a good number" of the professors who e-mailed her Thursday "agreed with the basic premise that too few students in j-school programs want to get into the newspaper business, but they were also critical of an industry that pays so little in so many markets. I work at a Guild newspaper, so even starting salaries are decent. This is not the case at many non-Guild papers and smaller publications."

Many of the e-mails from professors -- as well as from journalism students and working journalists -- could be summed up this way, said Schultz: "Corporate-owned newspapers should stop making the profit margin their top priority and, instead, invest in the kind of reporting and editing that does justice to our profession's proud legacy."

A few e-mails were from PR people from the nonprofit world who were "wounded by the column," said Schultz. "Undeniably, they are out there doing honorable work for little pay. They're also in the minority."

She added that a few e-mailers wondered why the column didn't include the professors' names. "It's a reasonable question," said Schultz. "I am protecting the identities of these professors because they spoke to me on the condition that I would. I've come to learn that most academics are not particularly courageous when it comes to public dissension, as opposed to behind-the-scenes battling.

"In this case, though, I understand some of their concern because they're afraid of retaliation from university administrators who want to paint a rosy picture of their burgeoning journalism enrollment while downplaying who these so-called future journalists actually are -- mostly PR, advertising, and marketing majors. Many faculty members who talk to me about it are adjuncts or tenure-track, and so they feel their jobs are at stake, too."

Schultz did add: "Most of the faculty who have taken the time to talk to me about this in recent months do so out of a true concern for the profession and a genuine affection for their students."

And Schultz emphasized that some students remain idealistic. "I am heartened by the response of some young journalists who truly feel the same passion that drives me still in this profession," Schultz told E&P. "What I didn't say in my original column, and wish I had, is that I have been privileged to meet some very talented and driven journalism students. This has been particularly true in my encounters with the Scripps Howard Foundation, which grows new journalists every year through its many programs and scholarships."

Schultz, who's syndicated by Newhouse News Service, concluded: "This kind of column tends to have 'legs' as it's passed out in classes and circulated in newsrooms, so I expect to hear more in the next few days."