Read the internet page and answer the questions.
1. Did all journalists have special preparation for their profession some years ago?
2. Nowadays what are students taught journalism departments?
3. How has the situation with journalism training and education changed for the last ten years?
4. Where did the world’s first journalism school appear?
JOURNALISM SCHOOL
A journalism school is a school or department, usually part of an established university, where journalists are trained. An increasingly used term for a journalism department, school or college is “J-School”. Many of the most famous and respected journalists of the past and present had no formal training in journalism, but learned their craft on the job, often starting out as copy boys /copy girls. Today, in many parts of the world it is usual for journalists to first complete university-level training which incorporates both technical skills such as research skills, interviewing technique and shorthand and academic studies in media theory, cultural studies and ethics.
Historically, in the United Kingdom entrants used first to complete a non media-studies related degree course, giving maximum educational breadth, prior to taking a specialist postgraduate pre-entry course. However, this has changed over the last ten years with journalism training and education moving to higher educational institutions. There are now over 60 universities in the UK offering BA (Bachelor of Arts) degrees in journalism. Postgraduate courses are more well-established, some of which are either recognised by the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) or the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ).
The first program for journalism education was introduced by former Confederate General, Robert E. Lee, during his presidency at Washington and Lee University, in Lexington, Virginia, in the 1860s. Both the Missouri School of Journalism at the University of Missourifounded by Walter Williams in 1908 and the Ecole Superieure de Journalisme in Paris, France founded in 1899 claim to be the world’s first journalism school. Although Paris’s school opened its doors in 1899 after three years of internal debates, the question was discussed in Missouri since 1895. Since then the journalism school has become standard at most major universities.