University should create journalism program

Princeton sees itself first and foremost as an academy that exists to further scholarship and teach its students how to think. In order to advance these twin goals, it has organized itself along the lines of the academic disciplines. For the most part, pre-professional programs have been left for other institutions to pursue. Yet in certain circumstances, as with professional fields that make a large contribution to academic knowledge or have a high social value, the University makes an exception. The prime examples are engineering, the finance certificate and the University's teacher prep program.

Yet journalism, a field with both a high social value and a great deal of student interest, lacks the resources of an academic program. Thus, as a board, we propose that the University create a journalism certificate in order to remedy this situation.

The media has long been recognized as an essential element of democracy, but trust in the U.S. media has recently plummeted, as the industry has been wracked by scandals and narrow or incomplete reporting. Today more than ever, we need rigorously trained journalists to help rebuild this industry. Many Princeton students are interested in journalism; the University should make sure they are properly trained to be leaders in this crucial field.

The University already offers three or four journalism seminars every semester, all of which are taught by distinguished writers from some of the country's most prominent news sources. These writers are not, however, permanent faculty. It is difficult to build a sustained relationship with a professor who is only here one semester — and who, during that semester, is often traveling and reporting for his or her newspaper. Students interested in journalism have no one to turn to for sustained mentoring and support of their work.

Building a journalism program would thus require establishing a small permanent faculty of professionals, similar to those in the creative writing program. The faculty would teach core courses and seminars and provide mentoring and counseling for students earning the certificate. These courses would be supplemented by seminars taught by visiting professors and would be structured similarly to the current journalism classes.

Like any other certificate, students would be required to complete four or five courses in the program and conduct some sort of independent journalistic work (probably in the form of a junior paper). The point of this work would be to teach students the basic skills they need to be smart, thorough reporters. Perhaps more importantly, though, the program would also teach them how to translate the knowledge they gain in their majors — whether it be politics or Slavic languages and literatures — into writing that is accessible to a wider public.

Honest, rigorous reporting is essential to the functioning of a healthy democracy. Today, we need strong leaders in journalism to create media that the public can trust to provide them with reliable information and look out for their best interests.