I hear ya-

I'm not harshing on typewriter repair or HS grads, either.

Believe me-I know what it's like to work hard for a degree, immerse yourself in ideas and skills you want to make relevant and work for pennies. I was 10 years out of university before I made more than $20k.

I still say I am happier and more skilled now for the experience. I wouldn't say COMPETE, because I learned from those HS folks, too. I am no stranger to the 70 hr week; I make a decent but not extravagant living (despite the myths out there, about the same as a mid career teacher) that I can actually appreciate because of that process.

I do agree that educators and family, etc. need to do a better job of helping students know what to expect when they finish university. I also agree that the burden of debt today's students take on is really extreme. I think the rest of us can help students and young grads out by sharing our experiences and expectations, too. Plenty of young folks out there who have no perspective on work-life balance, and would benefit from some guidance there.

I really repsect the instructor for his concern. Cary was likely playing his usual devil's advocate may care role. It's really about perspective. We can all try to offer some, but honestly, for most young folks it is something they have to live through in order to own it. Nothing la la about that.

He didn't just fight evil wearing a red cape and blue tights. He fought evil also as geeky bespectacled journalist Clark Kent.

"Journalism" in America began its descent the moment local papers were bought up by huge corporate media companies whose focus was on profitablity and not on the ideals of the importance of a free and vigorous press to the health of any democracy. Now we have to watch hot bubbleheads on the news and read fluffy, sugary "human interest" stories about dogs befriending kittens because there are few true journalists remaining, and those that still exist are mostly relegated to blogging.

I say this as someone who grew up being a journalist--at 15, my first job was as a paid-by-the-line stringer for a local weekly. I got into two of the best undergrad j-schools in the country (Medill at Northwestern and U of Missouri-Columbia) but opted to go somewhere else and major in English instead. Although I reported and edited for my college newspaper for four years as well, I decided not to become a career journalist. This was 2001, and I didn't want to make just 18K when I graduated.

Because newspapers are so focused on profits, they've been starving writers (and those on the production end) for decades. As others have pointed out, this means that most reporters, for all their "objectivity," are from a certain class and have certain ideas about how the world operates. The other type of journalist is like my best friend, who labored for 10 years at crap supporting jobs in the industry (while always also working full-time as a bartender) before finally scoring a gig as a sports broadcaster last year. He's of that strain of journalist who likes the attention and minor fame that journalism can bring.

Unfortunately for American democracy, true objective journalism is the first casualty of the fascists/communists/whoever-wants-to-curtail-freedom. With no one to look over their shoulders, Congress is much more likely to try to pull more of the bailout-money-to-bonuses scams.

Please keep teaching, Journalism Professor. Journalism is changing and, I fear, losing is strength. But we need to teach the next generation the art of objectively questioning our leaders and their policies.

Just after the Rocky Mountain News folded, I was approached by one of my high school students to become the adviser for the school newspaper she wants to re-found. My principal is 100% behind me but has made it clear that, in the age of tightening public school budgets, I will not receive an additional stipend for my additional work and I will have to find a way to print the paper for free or nearly cost-free.

I said yes anyway.

fwiw, thegift, your point about deregulation: you've nailed it. but media megalopolies are all a lot of young and even not so young people have ever known.

they say murdoch loses $50-60 million a year on his NY Post.

perhaps, what with agitation for a more diverse media (eg, progressive radio access commensurate with its healthy ratings), the percentage of market control will be dialed back.

if i were a newly web-based newspaper, i'd charge for the online and put smaller paper versions on the street in boxes ~ freebies or cheap, like a quarter ~ for people to pick up and read in coffeeshops and on the train.

as for PR, it's not all sweet-smell-of-success sleazy. for government, nonprofits, and plenty of decent companies, it's a fine calling.

I graduated with my J-school degree some six years ago and have been floored by the lack of opportunities since. Even those classmates of mine who have found employment in newspapers have all been laid off by now. Yes, we will always have the skills to discover and report information, but with a saturated market, information is now distributed as podcasts and blog posts--and those don't pay the bills.

Getting a degree in Sanskrit (or Typewriter Repair, as is my example) IS a disservice to young people who go to college with the expectation that a half-decade of hard work and tens of thousands of dollars in loan debt will be justified with a career. Instead, I am competing with those who barely graduated high school.

I love your little speech about the disadvantaged journalism grads telling the stories of the disadvantaged someday.

And then there's reality. I was forced out of my $5-an-hour job at a newspaper in the '80s because I had to actually eat sometime and I was told that under no circumstances would I receive a "handout" for wanting to "pontificate" and spread my liberal crap around. Those Welfare Queens needed to get real jobs, and so did I. The reporters who survived that weeding-out process were comfortably middle-class.

The only kids who are graduating to tell the stories of the disadvantaged are trust fund babies and the comfortable.

I was just talking to a scrappy journalist who has managed to survive doing the muckraking thing. He spoke to a young reporter at The Village Voice the other day about his undercover work among children who were kidnapped by the New York City foster care system and then fed to the clinical trials system for "Black Box" AIDS drugs -- when the very reason they were being taken from their parents was that they couldn't handle the side effects of similar drugs. I can't think of a more worthy story of the "disadvantaged."

This young woman (who objects to being called a young woman, by the way, it's so un-PC) at the Voice objects to having to read anything technical or scientific about the flaws in HIV testing among pregnant women. My goodness, imagine having to work for a living instead of just supporting a fantasy-liberal ideology. Imagine having to get one's hands dirty defending the working class.

My friend speculates that the Voice reporter is a trust fund baby. I would be willing to bet that she at least doesn't come from the socioeconomic class of these children and parents. If she did, she would be fighting for this story with every scrap of journalistic ability she had.

You're never going to see the Village Voice cover this story -- except to cover it up so that future generations of trust fund kids can work there and feel good about themselves. Indeed, I never saw Salon cover it, and it's been out there for four years. Lisa Foderaro of The New York Times did a good job of contradicting herself several times to claim that the kids died of AIDS, not drugs that cause constant diarrhea, vomiting and pain. Even City Councilman Bill DeBlasio managed to ignore the December 12 Movement protesting outside his own front door in tony Park Slope, Brooklyn; he probably mistook them for the cleaning people.

This is an easy story to dodge if you've never taken calls from women "praying to Jesus" in their closets when the authorities are coming for their kids. Your social class can keep you at a safe distance.