By Loka Ashwood
When I received my acceptance letter to the Medill School of Journalism four years ago, I was honored. Somehow I had gained a spot in a school that was the shining pillar of journalistic integrity, social responsibility and hard-nosed reporting. Call me naive. Call me idealistic. But I came to Northwestern, like many of my classmates, prepared to change the world for the better.
I haven't forgotten why I came here. But it seems that Medill has.
I wonder why signs that used to say "Medill School of Journalism" have been replaced with "Medill Media Management Center." I struggle to understand why some of my professors - the best professionals and academics in their field - are teaching students computer-skills courses that could be taken almost anywhere. I can't wrap my mind around professors' instructions in a senior-level course that I need to write a product and not the news. Instead of being encouraged to inform the public, I am told to target a consumer. Rather than cover issues in the public interest, I am instructed to satiate the market's appetite.
In October, a document was sent to Medill faculty outlining 12 teams responsible for redesigning the curriculum and assigning objectives to each team. The document, passed on by a source in Medill, states that "economic fundamentals and business literacy" are primary objectives for journalism students.
In the next week, a 25-page rewrite of the journalism curriculum, based on the work of the teams, is expected to use even stronger marketing language. The new curriculum, according to another Medill source, will echo the newest Integrated Marketing Communications curriculum, which was released Wednesday. And I thought I came to Medill to bring important issues to the public's eye. I thought I would learn the basics of writing, reporting and responsibility.
I believed the school represented journalism as the voice of the people, the voice of justice and an arena for ideas.
Instead, Medill is teaching about the market, the consumer and advertising.
Luckily I can balance my teachings at Medill with courses in political science, where professors remind me that democracy is founded upon freedom of speech and freedom of the press. I am taught that freedom of speech is freedom of thought, and without liberty there is no freedom. I am reminded that when I write a story, I can do so within a greater framework that my country established centuries ago to ensure I had the right to do so.
Aside from a few Medill instructors who encouraged reporting hard news and fostered idealism, two of whom have left the school, these nobler ideas of the press are left untaught.
The role of journalism as a voice of the people and a means of justice has held true for centuries, regardless of technological developments and progressions. So why is Medill now forgetting the social responsibility of the press? Why is the school focusing on developing reporters who write a "product?" Why, as stated in the team objectives, are professors potentially being taught to "push students beyond comfort zones e.g. 'Make and market something you don't believe in or don't like or understand to an audience you are not part of or don't know'"?
The dramatic changes in Medill are not confined to its walls.
If business is the looming force steering Medill into an uncertain future, it is important to remember that Medill is part of a larger academic community dedicated to fostering learning. If NU's goal is to serve financial interests rather than to provide an environment where students can contribute to society through higher education, then Medill might be on track.
As a graduating student of the 2007 class, I was accepted to and am a student of the Medill School of Journalism, not the Medill School of Media Management. I am a student of journalism, not media management. I am proud of one and shamed by the other.
Medill must realize how profound its current changes in curriculum are. If it doesn't, the school will potentially insult distinguished alumni and repel students who believe journalism is an agent of positive change. Social responsibility, solid reporting and good writing are not an aspect of journalism. They are its core.
Loka Ashwood is a Medill senior and former Daily staffer. She can be reached at l-ashwood@northwestern.edu.
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