About journalism education

This site provides information about teaching and practicing journalism for students and for members of the community who may be interested. Our mission is to serve democracy and the public interest by providing factual  information and a forum for the public exchange of opinion.   The values we hold are embodied in the SPJ Code of Ethics, which are, briefly, to seek the truth, act independently, minimize harm, and be accountable.

About journalism education 

The original call for college level journalism education came from former Confederate general Robert E. Lee at the time he was president of Washington College (now Washington & Lee University in Virginia). Educated journalists were needed to rebuild the American South after the Civil War, he said.

Although the W&L program did not last in the 19th century, a four year college program was established in 1908 at the University of Missouri, and newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer established a program in his 1911 bequest to Columbia University (New York) along with the famed Pulitzer Prizes for public service journalism.

Journalism educators have an accrediting council, the ACEJMC, and their nine detailed standards are available online.  Similar standards for high school journalism are found at the Journalism Education Association site.

There are 110 ACEJMC accredited journalism programs in American universities   and about double that number of non-ACEJMC accredited programs, according to a Knight Foundation report.  Although Radford’s journalism program would meed all of the curricular requirements, it would not meet all of the structural requirements of ACEJMC accreditation.  Radford journalism faculty have been advocates for the additional spending that would be required for an ACEJMC accredited program.  It’s important to add that RU programs are fully accredited through state and national educational agencies such as the Southern Association of Colleges.

Eric Newton of the Knight Foundation said not long ago that journalism education should take a teaching hospital approach. While many things are changing in journalism education, he said …

“The one thing that isn’t changing is the why of journalism, why free people need independent thinkers, people who will engage on behalf of us all in the fair, accurate, contextual search for truth. We assume the people here already believe that an understanding of current events is essential if free people are to run their lives and their communities.”