Warning: media

Warning: this post may be biased and narrow-sighted as it is infused by frustration while still in a lecture.

Why did I choose to study journalism? This question crosses my mind more often now than at any other time in my life. This is because during the time of my studies in Lithuania I could blame the system for the journalism studies’ shortcomings – the whole educational system is rotten, young people don’t contribute to the educational progress etc etc.

But then I went to Denmark – the best journalism school in the country and a university that ranks in the top 60 of the world’s universities. And then I went to Australia – to a no1 journalism school in Sydney. And my frustration has not diminished, vice versa - it has grown fiercer with every day.

What is my problem? The humongous gap between practice and theory. I get a lot of counter arguments to this one saying that most disciplines face this controversy. I say we have to look at a particular case – journalism is all about practice. You cannot read McLuhan or McQuail and then just easily adapt it in your work. It does not work that way cause the guys are not living on another planet, they are living in another universe for god’s sake.

Journalism scholars think they know better and journalism professionals think they know shit. The scholars research the media in a way it should function ideally – and I don’t even know what the ideal is (please do inform me if you’re aware of these ideal conditions). Has it ever functioned in an ideal system? No. Has the need for it decreased because of that? Quite contrary, in my opinion, journalism is at its best today, because there’s so much social interaction and higher accountability due to the fact that the access to information is no longer limited to the privilege of the journalists.

Yet the scholars see a problem in the PR overtake, in the diminishing role of the journalistic professionalism, in the lack of specialization etc. Of course there are problems but this is not the problem. The problem is that the scholars are not addressing the problems in a right way. They distance themselves from the practice; take the position of some kind of a preacher who knows better and therefore misses the target completely.

Scholars love saying that if journalism won't start abiding by the scholarly advice it will become so rotten it will actually one day die. I find this hilarious and in this case want to remind you something that Socrates said and Plato recorded on paper:

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”

According to him the youth should have ruined the planet completely and driven the world to anarchy if not worse. And yet we progressed and our world is more wonderful than it has ever been. That’s what I think about journalism as well – every generation of journalists’ thinks that they are the last ones who are credible and yet journalism survives and, further more, progresses. Maybe not in an ideal way, but still.