Wednesday, September 29, 2021

Journalism schools: An egregious egregore

I keep coming back to David Simon’s observation that postmodern institutions like the police department, drug economy, political structures, and school administrations, are today’s Olympian forces. The Wall Street Journal reported recently that US journalism schools leave graduates with hefty student loans; the schools seem to me to be an oblivious if not malevolent deity.

Even as the news business keeps losing thousands of jobs, journalism schools keep churning out deeply indebted graduates. The schools do this because students can keep paying; the students can pay by taking on uncapped loans from the federal government that most of them, given paltry salaries in journalism, won’t be able to repay. 

It’s not just individual schools; it’s the “industry” as a whole. I'll assume schools don’t collude to exploit students, but staff and faculty in different places share backgrounds, interests and incentives, and so they act collectively as a greater-than-human entity. 

Another greater-than-human entity shares culpability: the federal government, broadly defined to include bureaucrats and politicians. It benefits in reputational terms from supposedly helping students fund their education. The lenders also play a role that I'll leave aside for now.

Neither academia nor government bear any costs; they are immune to the impacts on students. I’m sure individual academics and officials empathize with students and perhaps even (against their personal interests) advise them against going to journalism school. However, the institutions – the egregores, effectively – are callous and obtuse. They are the ones “throwing the lightning bolts and hitting people in the ass for no decent reason,” to quote David Simon.

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