
The New York Times  Â
Editorâs note: In a profile about its new executive editor, the New York Times reported that Dean Baquet does not have a college degree. Baquet dropped out of Columbia University after his sophomore year after landing a summer internship at a New Orleans newspaper that he parlayed into a full-time job. The revelation took many by surprise and prompted the question of whether a journalist could land a job at the Times without a college degree. That led to the following response from environmental writer Roger Witherspoon, who gives an insightful historical perspective on news media and journalism education.
The short answer to the question is no, you canât get a job now at the New York Timesâor virtually any other newsroomâwithout a college degree.
Back in the â60s, journalism was viewed as a trade, and while there were journalism programs, graduating from one was not required. The Michigan Daily, the college paper at the University of Michigan, for years had more alumni actually working as journalists than any institution except the journalism program at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Michigan did not underwrite its media. The radio station, WCBN, and the Daily paid salaries, earned revenue from advertising, and competed with the for-profit radio stations and newspapers in the Detroit area.
Most newspapers in those days had their own in-house training program. I went from NBCâs election unit to the Bergen Record in â68, and theirs was a six-week program. You didnât start writing for the paper until the last week and were assigned a beat after graduating.Â
Time magazine also had a training program, though most blacks had to first work in the reference department for several years before getting a chance at reporting. Newspapers back then were pretty much lily-whiteâI was the first at the Recordâand it was another decade before the New York City newspapers dropped their separate and unequal pay scales.
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There were two things that changed the common practices and view of journalism as a trade:
1. Barbara Walters got a contract for $1 million in the early â70s. (My salary at NBC was $80 a week.)
2. Watergate.
Waltersâ contract had parents all over America suddenly looking at the news businessâparticularly TVâas a worthwhile career to pursue. Watergate made stars of âWoodSteinâ (reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who shared a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of Watergate) and gave luster to investigative reporting.
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As a result, colleges all over the country suddenly started mass communication programs, usually within their English departments. And the results were predictable: Students would be assigned a story, and when they didnât turn it in on time, got three days to do a makeup. That works fine for English papers but doesnât do much to train aspirants to handle deadlines. At Clark Atlanta University, for example, mass communication was its second-biggest department with some 400-plus students. But generally, only about five of its graduates each year could actually land jobs in the mediaâeven though their school had a television and radio station as training grounds. (Greg Morrison, Nolu Crockett-Ntonga and Jane Tillman Irving would later overhaul the schoolâs broadcast training and faculty.)
In the â80s, the Associated Press Managing Editors Association met with academic accrediting groups and worked out a deal: The APME would work with the accrediting body to set standards for journalism programs that would turn out actual reporters and in return, the managing editors would only hire folks with journalism degrees or the equivalent experience. And that is pretty much the state of the art now.
I have 48 years in this business. Iâve worked in all forms: newspapers (reporter, editor, columnist, editorial writer), magazines (writer, contributing editor, here and abroad), books (two histories and a textbook), radio, television (writer and producer) and public relations (globally for Exxon). See my bio.
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I have no degree.
I majored in aeronautical engineering at Michigan and, in â66, was the only black kid there. The Ku Klux Klan tried to kill me, an effort that left me permanently crippled and always armed (pdf). AÂ klansman ran me down while I was crossing the street. An ambulance came, but the medic said they didnât pick up nâgers, and I walked, on a broken hip, to a hospital that would not treat me.
Because of my hip, I spent a lot of time in my room listening to the radio. One day I heard the announcer telling nâger jokes. So I walked down to the station, barged into the station managerâs office and demanded an end to racism on the air. He asked me if I thought I could do better at delivering a half-hour newscast than the guy who offended me. I said of course. He said Iâd start the next day. Thatâs my introduction to the news.
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I decided I liked it and wanted to learn more. So I applied for a job at the Michigan Daily, which paid a salary and I worked at both media outlets. In April 1968 I covered the presidential primary election of George RomneyâMittâs daddyâand found the experience of a presidential campaign electrifying, and in the long run, more interesting than building rockets.
I quit school the next day and drove back to New Jersey. It was a Thursday. That Monday I walked into the NBC personnel office and said Iâd like a job in the newsroom. I had just covered Romneyâs campaign and wanted to do that for a living. The personnel director said they happened to have an opening in their election unit and if I wanted it, I could start Tuesday.
And I did.
But that was a half-century ago.
I might get a job delivering newspapers today. But I wouldnât be writing for one.
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Roger Witherspoon has spent more than 40 years working in all forms of the media as a journalist, author, educator, and public relations specialist. As a freelance writer, he has written for several publications, including Time, Newsweek, Fortune, Essence, Black Enterprise, The Economist, and US Black Engineer & IT.
