Anti-press rhetoric triggers bump in j-school enrollment - Entrepreneur Generations

The Trump administration's anti-journalist rhetoric has triggered a wave of push-back from the news media, as we reported yesterday, but it also may have inspired more students to go into journalism.

Though it's difficult to find hard data nationwide, several college newspaper editors told Adam Harris of The Atlantic that they were seeing increased j-school enrollment. Gail Wiggins, the interim chair of North Carolina A&T University's journalism department, said the department saw a 6 percent bump in enrollment from 2016 to 2017. And because Wiggins requires incoming students to write about why they chose a journalism major, the source of the bump is clear. More and more students write that "they want to tell their own stories . . . they want to provide truthful information to improve their communities," Harris reports.

Madeline Purdue, the editor in chief of The Nevada Sagebrush at the University of Nevada at Reno said the attacks on journalism make her want to be a better journalist. "I want to protect what I love by doing my absolute best work," she told Harrris. And though she acknowledges that the news media "isn't perfect" she and her classmates agree that "honest, hardworking" journalists do a good job.

from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/2MXmoY2 Anti-press rhetoric triggers bump in j-school enrollment - Entrepreneur Generations

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