The proliferation of journalism programmes around the world came under scathing attack at the Worldviews conference for unscrupulously recruiting too many students for the limited jobs available, and for being ossified in their curricula.
The attack was made by Adrian Monck, former dean of City University of London’s journalism school and now managing director and head of communications and media for the World Economic Forum.
In the conference session “Something born or something bred? The necessity of the academy to train journalists”, Monck described journalism as “a lousy business” but journalism education as “a great business”.
“It is entirely unscrupulous of the academy to look at journalism education as a cash cow through which it can extort money from hopeful young people with the promise of delivery of some form of employment at the end of it,” he said.
The majority of students were set up to fail in programmes that defined success by being gateways to the top end of the “tiny profession”.