II lioois. Oniversity- 
 Scbool of journal ism- 
 Report 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2013 
 
 http://archive.org/details/reportofschoolofOOuniv 
 
will* 9 
 
 Report of 
 
 School of Journalism 
 
 * \iu^ s 
 
 Prepared by Director Lawrence W . Murphy for 
 the newspapermen of Illinois, read at the Jour- 
 nalism Conference, Nov. 12, 1938. Printed and 
 sent to all newspapers in the State at the request 
 of the Conference. 
 
 IN ACCORDANCE with custom, 
 informal report is here made con- 
 cerning the School of Journalism. 
 The trend in educational circles and 
 the judgment which is being brought 
 to bear on problems of professional 
 education generally is lending point 
 to the decision made years ago to 
 insist on sound liberal and general 
 educational values in preparation for 
 journalism. The early decision of 
 your School to insist that students 
 spend at least two years in prelimi- 
 nary college study before securing 
 admission to the professional pro- 
 gram is everywhere recognized as 
 wise and sound. ( 
 
 At the time that the professional 
 program was organized to conform 
 with the wishes of newspapermen 
 of the State there were a number of 
 persons who advised a four-year pro- 
 fessional curriculum admitting high 
 school graduates. While it would 
 have been possible to organize the 
 work on such a basis, and while 
 certain benefits would have been real- 
 ized under such a plan, it seemed 
 wiser to develop the program on the 
 basis of admitting students after 
 they had acquired some learning in 
 the humanities and sciences. 
 
 Our experience since has con- 
 firmed our judgment and pointed the 
 
 way to still further emphasis on 
 general and liberal studies. We now 
 require that a student earn at least a 
 general average of C during his first 
 two years, that he continue in such 
 courses as history, political science, 
 economics, rhetoric, and social 
 studies generally after his admission 
 to the School, carrying on disciplin- 
 ary courses in journalism at the 
 same time. 
 
 We now exercise control over all 
 the courses the student takes as a 
 professional student and regularly 
 prescribe courses which draw on the 
 larger resources of the whole Uni- 
 versity to fill in gaps in general edu- 
 cation and to insure acquaintance 
 with organized learning in the fields 
 especially identified with our culture. 
 
 In the early days of the School, 
 we specified that students must pre- 
 sent at graduation a minimum of 20 
 hours in social science, 12 hours in 
 literature, a course in rhetoric be- 
 yond the freshman courses in that 
 subject, and a course in philosophy. 
 After a few years it was found pos- 
 sible to secure work of these or 
 larger amounts in the studies desired 
 without such specific wording and 
 this statement of required work was 
 replaced with one which gave the 
 School jurisdiction over the detail of 
 
 I i } 
 
every student program every se- 
 mester. The School then started to 
 check up each student each semester 
 and vary the prescription in studies 
 to meet individual needs. The early 
 statement of prescribed work, how- 
 ever, presents a representative pic- 
 ture of what students are now 
 taking under regulations which en- 
 able us to suit the prescription to the 
 condition of the patient. 
 
 The requirement of 30 hours in 
 journalism courses has not been 
 changed during the past twelve years. 
 It was recognized that this might 
 be too large a number in certain 
 cases and experiments were under- 
 taken with honor students to secure 
 some light on this point. Also, 
 certain courses in other departments, 
 such as rhetoric, law, literature, po- 
 litical science, economics, and history 
 were given journalism course listing 
 to permit them to count on the 30 
 hours. The School has resisted the 
 tendency to require a larger amount 
 of work in restricted professional 
 and technical subject matter, even 
 though much of such work has liberal 
 and cultural values. This work is 
 not lacking in quality or in demands 
 upon the student but the amount of 
 it can be increased in a four-year 
 program only by cutting down un- 
 duly the work that can be taken in 
 other subjects. In a five-year pro- 
 gram there is no problem in increas- 
 ing the 30 hours to some figure 
 slightly larger ; in a four-year pro- 
 gram there is a serious difficulty 
 because the student must then give 
 up basic liberal and cultural studies 
 to become absorbed in journalistic 
 applications and points of view. 
 
 As true as it was some years ago 
 that a student needed general and 
 liberal studies in goodly amount as 
 a background for professional edu- 
 
 cation in journalism, it is even more 
 true today. The press is called on to | 
 exercise a wise and temperate in- 
 fluence in the lives of men. Through j 
 the newspaper press, which stands at j 
 new highs in circulation, readership, 
 and creation of reader attitudes, 
 through the radio press, the news 
 magazine press, and the picture press, 
 which draw upon the newspaper 
 press for personnel, the men and 
 women of journalistic education to- 
 day are called upon to exercise con- 
 trolling influences in the lives of 
 millions of people. 
 
 New achievements in speed of 
 communication and transportation, 
 improvement of presses and printing 
 processes and auxiliary services of the 
 press, have increased the responsi- 
 bility upon graduates of the news- 
 paper's system of training and edu- 
 cation. Where a little learning might 
 suffice for a reporter or editor of an 
 earlier day, because his work was 
 subject to check through other fac- 
 tors in the lives of his scattered 
 readers, today the reporter and edi- 
 tor and special pleader need much 
 more learning to guard against giv- 
 ing wrong information, giving a 
 wrong slant to items over which 
 they have control, giving inadequate 
 attention to things that are signifi- 
 cant in the lives of the members of 
 their public. No longer is it merely 
 the editorial writer on the larger 
 papers who is called on to have a 
 broad knowledge and a well ordered 
 philosophy. Today, the reporter, and 
 the person who serves the reporter, 
 on large papers and small, those who 
 are engaged in any sense in dealing 
 with news and views, publicity and 
 propaganda, advertising and pub- 
 lishing, all must be wise in their 
 generation. 
 
 And it is becoming increasingly 
 
 ( 2 ) 
 
difficult to be wise, for our thinking 
 has become confused by a stagger- 
 ing load of fact and opinion; by the 
 rapidity with which reforms have 
 been sought in the last few years; 
 by the attempt to parallel changes in 
 our technological world with changes 
 in our social world. We have the 
 spectacle abroad of governments 
 which succeed in a material sense by 
 violating all the rules of good gov- 
 ernment we have learned. We have 
 the spectacle of attempts of foreign 
 influences at colonization in the 
 United States and the most stagger- 
 ing outpouring of propaganda for a 
 thousand causes that the world has 
 ever known. 
 
 What is demanded by such a 
 world is interpreters of greater 
 learning. We must set our faces in 
 the direction of a higher order of 
 professional competence, one that re- 
 quires of a man that he be more 
 generously disciplined and informed 
 in the subject matter of our culture 
 and civilization. And in saying this, 
 in making a plea for giving cultural 
 studies a larger place in the program 
 of our professional schools, I do not 
 overlook the danger which those 
 studies may entail. I ask for a larger 
 acquaintance with such studies in the 
 sense that they present traditional 
 values. If such studies are to be used 
 as vehicles for propaganda and to 
 belittle the achievements and ideas 
 of those who have preceded us, then 
 the time spent on them is largely 
 wasted. What we seek from the con- 
 ventional studies is the values that 
 made them conventional — we seek to 
 enable students to draw upon the 
 past for wisdom and precedents and 
 enrichment of experience and for 
 substantial discipline. We do not 
 seek to have history twisted into a 
 support for one or another transient 
 
 theory; to have political science a 
 series of special pleadings, to have 
 economics the tracing of one theory 
 or point of view at the expense of 
 others. Nor yet do we believe that 
 two sides of a given question should 
 have an equal amount of attention. 
 Two sides have no more an equal 
 value in history than in journalism. 
 It is not the function of historians 
 to confuse the reader by giving equal 
 emphasis to two sides in a con- 
 troversy. It is their function to make 
 diligent inquiry and then to present 
 their story fairly according to the 
 best lights that they have. 
 
 We are familiar with education 
 and with school subjects and systems 
 which have fallen into the hands of 
 propagandists and malcontents. In 
 the hands of such persons no sub- 
 jects are safe. They can turn the 
 study of Latin into a course in com- 
 munism, a course in science into a 
 course in Hitlerism, a course in 
 philosophy into a course in paganism, 
 a course in literature into a course 
 in internationalism, a course in mili- 
 tary science into a course in anarchy. 
 A course in economics which is nine- 
 tenths a course in explanation of 
 and study of recent financial legisla- 
 tion can hardly escape being of 
 propaganda character, the sheer 
 weight of time spent on the learning 
 of the detail of the new creates a 
 state of unbalance in the mind of 
 the learner. Unless he can restore 
 his balance by other courses in eco- 
 nomics which deal competently with 
 the past he can hardly bring things 
 into focus for himself. 
 
 The concern of schools of journal- 
 ism in great universities is, of 
 course, with every aspect of profes- 
 sional work. There is no disposition 
 in any quarter to neglect the essen- 
 tial technical elements and the dis- 
 
 { 3 } 
 
ciplinary exercises that will give 
 them proper meaning to professional 
 students. But our concern is not 
 only with professional courses in 
 journalism, it is with the preparation 
 of the student to discharge wisely 
 and well the high type of social re- 
 sponsibility which draws upon the 
 full resources of broadly educated 
 minds. 
 
 Thus it is that we see the present 
 and future as presenting new chal- 
 lenges to professional students and 
 we see a need for even more study 
 of cultural and social studies than 
 we now require. To this end we ask 
 your endorsement of our efforts to 
 develop a five-year program in which 
 the students will make a substantial 
 gain in the amount of general and 
 cultural study required, and a gain, 
 as well, in the professional develop- 
 ment possible when students of 
 greater learning undertake profes- 
 sional studies. 
 
 Our theory is that there is nothing 
 new in kind in the world today ; that 
 which is new is new only in degree. 
 If this is true the past can be a 
 great help in solving problems of the 
 present. We will make a contribu- 
 tion to the solution of problems of 
 the present if we bring into journal- 
 ism a body of graduates who know 
 enough of the past to use it as a 
 test in appraising the present, some- 
 times rejecting the past in making 
 decisions but knowing that past, at 
 least, and drawing upon it for its 
 teachings. 
 
 The teachings of the great masters 
 were given with the same problems 
 in mind as those which we have 
 today. In the days of Plato and 
 Aristotle and Socrates there were 
 travel, transportation, laborers, com- 
 munication, machines, exchange of 
 news ; in the days of Christ and Mo- 
 
 hammed there were voyages, and 
 census taking, and politics, and 
 mobs; in the days of Alfred the 
 Great and Charlemagne and Haroun 
 al Raschid there were chroniclers 
 and minstrels and fish stories and 
 press agents. We have all of these ; 
 our problems are different only in 
 intensity. Today we have more 
 readers and listeners, faster trans- 
 mission, greater coverage ; but there 
 were always some readers, some 
 listeners, some transmission, some 
 coverage. The voices of the past do 
 not speak a different language ; they 
 speak the same language, for the 
 speakers saw all our problems in one 
 degree or another. 
 
 We do not approve the practice 
 in high schools which turns out of 
 doors the old subjects of study and 
 introduces a modernized or stream- 
 lined program of entertainment and 
 information and skills on an ama- 
 teur level. Technical high schools 
 have a function to perform but they 
 should not take over the field of the 
 general high schools unless we are 
 preparing to give the country back 
 to the Indians. Cultural learning 
 and study were never on too high a 
 plane in the high schools ; that the 
 schools should move in the direction 
 of less such study instead of more 
 may well be regarded as a danger 
 sign. This is a concern of schools 
 of journalism just as it is a concern 
 of journalism itself for we draw 
 both the journalists and the reading 
 public of the future from the high 
 schools. 
 
 The press, in a free country, will 
 remain a great educator but it cannot 
 overcome the handicap of ill-con- 
 ceived instruction in the secondary 
 schools. The newspapers, in the 
 homes of readers with empty minds, 
 will be unable to accomplish true and 
 
 I 4 ] 
 
lasting cultural advances. Nothing 
 comes out of a mind which has not 
 previously gone into it. If we put 
 nothing but trade school elements 
 into minds we reap a trade school 
 civilization ; a civilization based on 
 immediate skills and material re- 
 wards tor skills; a civilization ready 
 and eager to reject the ancient learn- 
 ing and lore, the traditions and ties, 
 the treasures and monuments of the 
 past The burning of libraries and 
 museums, the ruthless suppression of 
 opposition, the destruction of free- 
 dom and the invasion of human and 
 private rights is easy for those to 
 whom the past has never come to 
 hold rich and deep meanings. Jour- 
 nalists, and students prepared to 
 serve the press, can dedicate their 
 lives to the public welfare but they 
 will be martyrs indeed if the public 
 has no knowledge of that in which 
 its welfare properly consists. 
 
 Schools of journalism which are a 
 part of great universities have op- 
 portunity to make substantial contri- 
 bution to the improvement of the 
 press. They should not be confused 
 with schools and departments of 
 lesser institutions which present but 
 a fraction of the rich offerings which 
 should be open to journalism stu- 
 dents. They should not be confused 
 with departments which exist at in- 
 stitutions which have weak and small 
 departments of history, literature, 
 economics, political science, and other 
 divisions which have great strength 
 chiefly at great universities. They 
 should not be confused with trade 
 schools which conceive of a small 
 number of courses in other subjects 
 as adequate support of the profes- 
 sional courses in journalism. To the 
 end that the distinctions we have in 
 mind may be clear as we enter the 
 second decade of the School, I offer 
 
 you the following statement. It is 
 my belief that it reflects your convic- 
 tions as well as our own. I offer 
 this to you as the "charter" of Uni- 
 versity schools of journalism. 
 
 1. The University schools of 
 journalism must continue in oppo- 
 sition to trade schools preparing for 
 the practice of journalism. 
 
 2. The University schools of jour- 
 nalism must continue to regard em- 
 ploye and employer journalism as 
 governed by the same code of ethics 
 — no more and no less. 
 
 3. The University schools of jour- 
 nalism must continue to regard a 
 man properly and fully prepared for 
 the practice of journalism as deserv- 
 ing a professional level of economic 
 return for his work. 
 
 4. The University schools of jour- 
 nalism must continue to believe in 
 the right of a student to study and 
 understand his . profession without 
 being required to cast his lot with 
 a particular organization or any or- 
 ganization. If a student has any 
 rights at all he has a right to be a 
 guildsman or an anti-guildsman or a 
 non-conformist or anything else that 
 an upright and able person, loyal to 
 his country, has a right to be. This 
 stand should be maintained without 
 prejudice to the student's casting his 
 lot with any organization after 
 graduation. 
 
 5. The University schools of jour- 
 nalism must continue to stand for 
 truth and the search for truth in all 
 departments of study and life, and 
 not for the narrow and misleading 
 type of teaching and research which 
 propagates one point of view and 
 one set of facts, and makes educa- 
 tion serve a propaganda purpose. 
 There is as much danger in repre- 
 senting some group interests in jour- 
 nalism to the exclusion of others, 
 
 [ 5 } 
 
in teaching and research, as in repre- 
 senting the Hitler or Stalin point of 
 view in all-university teaching and 
 research. 
 
 6. The University schools of jour- 
 nalism must continue to insist that 
 the "background" college studies, 
 such as history, economics, political 
 science, literature, language, science, 
 and the special fields represented by 
 different departments and divisions 
 constitute the basis of and founda- 
 tion for professional education and 
 that there can be no professional 
 education for journalism not reared 
 upon a wide knowledge in the learn- 
 ing of the world. The function of 
 instruction in journalism courses is 
 not to supplant other courses but to 
 add to them the particular applica- 
 tions and knowledge which is needed 
 by men in the practice of journalism. 
 A program which reduces the learn- 
 ing in studies other than journalism 
 to less than three-fourths of a four 
 or five-year course is a move in the 
 wrong direction. Moreover, the work 
 in the various fields and subjects 
 should represent the complete re- 
 sources of the best universities and 
 not a handful of courses added to 
 the meager offerings of small institu- 
 tions. Similarly, the moves that 
 represent a requirement of less 
 work in journalism courses than is 
 recognized as appropriate by the 
 leading schools of journalism with 
 the longest and most comprehensive 
 experience is at fault. 
 
 7. Instruction in the social sciences 
 and in other subjects which is taken 
 at the same time as courses in jour- 
 nalism, in the upper and graduate 
 divisions, is being taken at a time 
 appropriate to the progress of the 
 students and the enrichment of both 
 the courses in journalism and these 
 other courses as well, the journalism 
 
 work lending motivation and special 
 values to the work in other depart- 
 ments and the work in other depart- 
 ments lending important values to 
 the work in journalism courses. The 
 judgment of the oldest and most 
 widely experienced leading Univer- 
 sity schools of journalism is the 
 safest guide in deciding what consti- 
 tute well balanced programs to serve 
 the ends desired. 
 
 8. University schools of journalism 
 cannot allow outside agencies to 
 prescribe their programs or the 
 methods that they shall pursue in 
 teaching. To do so is to give up 
 academic freedom. The American 
 Bar Association, though eager for 
 instruction in "ethics" in the law 
 schools of the country, refused on 
 occasion to insist on a special re- 
 quired course for such instruction 
 for fear of interfering with academic 
 freedom. It encourages the law 
 schools to give instruction in ethics 
 but has not ruled that a specific 
 course must be a requirement for 
 graduation. Academic freedom 
 should not be confused with low 
 standards of instruction, however. 
 Societies and individuals have 
 reason to insist on high standards, 
 as they do in advancing and spon- 
 soring classifications. 
 
 9. The University schools of jour- 
 nalism owe cooperation as much to 
 one body of journalists as to another. 
 They have as much reason for co- 
 operating with publishers, editors, 
 Guild members, and American Press 
 Society members generally as with 
 any one of these in particular. The 
 personnel of the press is composed 
 of all of these, and others as well. 
 No form of cooperation should be 
 entered on with one group which 
 may fairly prejudice another group. 
 
 10. Instruction in University 
 
 I 6 ) 
 
schools of journalism should not 
 portray one group as ethical and 
 another group as unethical, just 
 because charges and counter-charges 
 have been made. Charges, if any, 
 must always be against particular 
 items on particular days in particular 
 papers, and against single acts of 
 single individuals at particular in- 
 stants. Charges should not create 
 presumption of guilt. Too, no group 
 is seriously discredited by actions 
 representing less than one per cent 
 of its membership and no paper is 
 seriously discredited by errors which 
 constitute but a small per cent of its 
 content. Generalizations to the dis- 
 credit of the press have the un- 
 ethical quality of being untrue. 
 
 11. Instruction in journalism 
 should be conceived in a broad social 
 sense and not a narrow technical 
 and trade school sense. Techniques 
 are a means to an end, a method. 
 Professional instruction, while giving 
 proper attention to techniques, should 
 prepare students for high social re- 
 sponsibility. 
 
 12. University schools of journal- 
 ism exist under the privileges and 
 rights (such as freedom) granted by 
 our government. They have an ethi- 
 cal duty and responsibility to give 
 to the government because the gov- 
 ernment gives to them; to do other- 
 wise than to serve the government 
 
 is to take something for nothing. It 
 is a matter of ethics that the Uni- 
 versity schools, just as the press 
 itself, make a return for the rights 
 and privileges of which they take 
 advantage. Thus, by rules of pro- 
 fessional ethics as well as out of 
 the emotions and the human ties of 
 loyalty and patriotism the schools 
 owe allegiance to the country and the 
 particular form of government under 
 which they and the press have their 
 highest form of being. In a sense, 
 they owe a debt to their Universities, 
 too, following the same line of 
 reasoning; and to the press, in all 
 its forms, for comparable reasons. 
 To the public, of course, our Univer- 
 sity schools owe that special duty 
 which they have embraced simply 
 because it is the right thing to do. 
 To the public they owe full faith and 
 zealous effort to improve the quality 
 of their graduates and research to 
 the end that the public may have 
 better and better service in news and 
 views, the "food" of opinion — 
 opinion which means life or death 
 for democracy. 
 
 Respectfully submitted, 
 Lawrence W. Murphy 
 Director 
 
 University of Illinois 
 November 12, 1938 
 
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