(Source: SUNY-Stony brook)

Journalism programs, it seems, aren't just for budding journalists anymore. As papers scale back operations and reduce staff, fewer jobs are available for new J-school grads. But several colleges, as this InsideHigherEd.com article describes, are introducing journalism concentrations for students who want a writing-intensive major and who seek a deeper understanding of mass media.

Here's a snippet:

"Declining circulation." "Weaker ad revenue." "Fewer jobs." "Dinosaur."

All of these are from news reports on the present state of the news business. Even The New York Times is cutting her page size to reduce costs.

Why then, are some institutions cheerfully touting the creation of new journalism programs? The answer, they say, is that the writing and information gathering skills taught to journalism students are an entrée to an increasing number of jobs, both journalism and marketing, as the media comes to include both magazines and Webzines, both broadcasts and podcasts. [....]

SUNY-Stony Brook announced this month that it would open an undergraduate School of Journalism in the fall. Not all of the curriculum details are worked out, but Howard Schneider, former editor of Newsday and dean of the new school, said that students will all have to work in both traditional formats, such as print and television, and new media, such as the Web.

Several journalism professors interviewed said that journalism is simply a decent major for students who aren't necessarily looking to be reporters, but who want a broad education with a lot of writing. Faculty members and deans said that journalism is a very popular undergraduate major for students looking toward law school.

Schneider said that part of his school's mission will be to educate news consumers. To that end, the school will have a news literacy course required of all students, and open to any student at the university. "We want to educate the next generation of journalists, but we want to educate the next generation of consumers too," Schneider said. He added that, with the historically unprecedented amount of information now available at the click of a mouse, the only way credible news outlets can thrive is if readers are trained to separate the wheat from the chafe.

You can find the article here.