Journalism 1

Why are there Journalism schools?  Srsly.  I'm of the opinion that the best schooling a cub reporter wannabe can get  is old school.   Hired as a copy boy.  Treated brutally by no nonsense city editor.  Gets chance to write obituaries; advances to police beat. Breaks story on mayor and chief of police white slavery ring. Wins Pulitzer Prize.  Hired by even bigger city paper.   Right? I took a  journalism class in college.  I wanted to try it because it was the only major without a math requirement.  I didn't know it at the time, but I learned everything a journalism school can actually impart—   on the first day.  The Five Ws.    Who is it about? What happened? When did it take place? Where did it take place? Why did it happen? In that order.  "Accuracy" didn't start with "W," but it was understood to be critical.  Once.  You cannot learn more without going on a beat.  So, why journalism degrees?  Partly, I think, a conceit by newspapermen to present themselves as "professionals."  In practical terms, what's happened is journo schools, of which Columbia is a flagship,  have become the gatekeepers of who gets hired in the industry.  If you're the editor of the (usually off-campus) conservative paper, you don't get in.  Since all journo schools are staffed and run by, for all practical purposes, the American Communist Party, that discipline becomes ingrained.   After Theodore White wrote "Making of a President 1960," The Five W's were replaced by a liberal-lie stir-fry; your waiter's job— to instruct, "here's what it all means you stupid clot." And we are.