Journalism education marks centennial year

Meeting in Bascom Hall’s south wing in 1905, about 30 students in Professor Willard Bleyer’s English 19a class were the first of thousands to hone their craft as journalists and communicators at UW–Madison.

Among those who followed were Pulitzer Prize winners and legions of professionals who went on to chronicle world, national and community events and use their communications skills to inform and persuade the public.

The School of Journalism and Mass Communication will celebrate a century of journalism education with a weekend of events on Friday-Saturday, April 29-30, at the Pyle Center.

“We’re hoping to reintroduce ourselves to our grads and take time to share ideas on the future course of journalism and communications,” says professor James Baughman, the school’s director.

Although the tools of the trade have gone from typewriters to laptops, from lead type to weblogs, many of the founding principles in Bleyer’s first class still echo today. Louis Bridgman, a member of that first class, years later recalled Bleyer’s passion for ethical, civic-minded journalism.

“There were discussions by Professor Bleyer on the techniques of news writing. But even more profitable, in some respects, were his comments out of a wealth of knowledge on the principles that should govern the newspaper worker in his dealings with the public, and on the ethical presentation of the news,” Bridgman recalled.

Bleyer, from a family of Milwaukee printers, disdained media sensationalism and believed that the future of democracy was pinned to the skills of journalists. He wrote: “Newspapers are the teachers of the people.” Well-trained journalists, he reasoned, were vital to a democratic society.

“There was a time in the mid-20th century that Bleyer’s vision was being realized in journalism, but in the last 10-15 years journalism may have lost sight of some of that and reverted to many of the things Bleyer found offensive,” Baughman says. “In addition to celebrating the school and its accomplishments, the centennial gives us a chance to take a long, hard look at some of the problems of journalism, communications and new technology.”

What started as a single class grew into a department in 1912 and into the School of Journalism in 1927. By 1970, the school broadened its scope to become the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Recognizing that communications encompassed more than the news media, public relations coursework and research took root after public relations pioneer Scott Cutlip’s single course in the 1940s evolved into a separate emphasis in 1970. And broadcast news — unheard of when Bleyer’s course rolled out in 1905 — took hold in the postwar years and also was established as a professional sequence in 1970.

Similarly, advertising courses were offered in the early 1950s, and advertising quickly became a separate professional sequence.

Among its distinguished alumni are Anthony Shadid, whose work in Iraq for the Washington Post yielded the 2004 Pulitzer Prize; New York Times managing editor John Geddes; Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Neal Ulevich and scores of award winners and principals in advertising and public relations.

But the school has been more than a training ground for journalists and communicators. Former director Ralph Nafziger charted a course for research excellence beginning in the late 1940s.

Since then, the school has been a pioneer in research and analysis of media content, performance and audiences, and it was the first nationally to grant a doctorate in mass communication.

The school was ranked No. 1 in research productivity in a study published by Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, and it has more master’s and doctorate degrees granted per faculty member than any peer university.

“Entering our second century, we’ve built a leading-edge mass communication program that helps our graduates become better thinkers, professionals and citizens, just as Willard Bleyer envisioned,” Baughman says.

For more information on Centennial Weekend events, visit the Web site.