Dean Song, distinguished faculty, esteemed students:
What an honor to be with you today on this campus to meet administrators, faculty and students and learn more about your university in the capital of this great nation.
In such a grand setting as Beijing, it is difficult to be aware of life in rural America (where I come from). It is difficult to think that anything significant is happening away from the centers of power in your capital or the centers of power on the eastern seaboard of the United States.
Nonetheless, I feel constrained to tell you that interesting conversations and activities occur every day in journalism programs throughout the United States. For example, some of our faculty were talking informally last week in Farley Hall about possible topics for Depth Reports:
- § Points of hope in the Delta of Mississippi.
- § The future of Greenville
- § Challenges for Peace and Prosperity in the Balkans
- § The role of Ethiopia on the Horn of Africa
- § Challenges to Freedom of Expression from American Corporations
Similarly, in other journalism programs at many universities students are doing reporting on topics extending from local challenges to international crisis points. However, today I am talking about the Meek School of Journalism and New Media and some of the things we are doing. After these comments I thought Susanne Shaw and I would be able to have a conversation with you about journalism education in the U.S.
I have two points to make from my perspective:
1. The best journalism-media education is practical with a liberal arts foundation and an emphasis on the humanities more than the social sciences.
2. All traditional, practical programs in the U.S. will be on multiple platforms and will be in journalism or integrated marketing communications.
In the hill country of Mississippi, 50 miles south and 20 miles east of Memphis, Oxford, MS, has never been visited by most of our nation’s leaders. Yet, near this former home of William Faulkner and John Grisham, is an outstanding university with a rich history and tradition.
Land Grant Institutions
In the United States there are universities that are called Land Grant institutions. The university of Mississippi is not a Land Grant university.
However, many of the great journalism programs in the U.S. are in Land Grant institutions because those universities have an emphasis on practical education.
Land Grant Universities were established by the Morill Act of 1862, also known as the Land Grant College Act. Congressman Justin Smith Morrill of Vermont introduced the bill, and it was signed by Abraham Lincoln on July 2. The act established universities in each state that educated students in agriculture, home economics, mechanical arts and other professions.
The Land Grant Act changed the face of education and made room for our growing and ever changing nation.
AAU
The University of Mississippi is an AAU university. It is the type of university that traditionally has focused on more theoretical subjects that may or may not find practical application.
The university of Mississippi is called Ole Miss, the name used for the wife of the older owner of the large cotton plantations in the Deep South. She was the matriarch who took care of everyone on the plantation.
Ole Miss is the alma mater of great writers, distinguished scholars, outstanding physicians and noted journalists.
For all of these former students Ole Miss was not a mediocre institution in rural America. Ole Miss was a special place that prepared each of them for significant leadership. Then, like today, the University of Mississippi is a place where young men and women of common background and heritage can gain an education for uncommon achievement.
Thus, it is an honor today to represent the Meek School of journalism and New Media at the University of Mississippi. We are not a trade school. We are a place where young women and men are prepared to discuss and debate the public issues of our town, our state, our nation and our world. We stand in the great tradition of the educators of ancient Greece.
Rhetoric, One of the Liberal Arts
The Greeks delineated Rhetoric, written and spoken language, as one of the liberal arts required for a great education. They prepared citizens in presentation and persuasion in the amphitheaters of ancient Athens. On most college campuses rhetoric is forgotten.
In contrast, our faculty members prepare young men and women to present news and commercial communication in print, video and audio for distribution on multiple platforms (on paper and electronically). Indeed, our faculty and students are producing publications and documentaries that we do not believe corporate media are able or willing to do.
Integrated Marketing Communications
In the U.S. Public relations, publicity, promotion, advertising, etc., have been converged into brand communication, also known as strategic communication or integrated marketing communication. This is where the majority of students will be enrolled because the journalism industry in the U.S. Is facing drastic retrenchment.
Modern Rhetoric
For example, under the leadership of Pat Thompson and Bill Rose (two outstanding former journalists who have joined our faculty) our students are exploring the declining quality of life in towns in the Mississippi Delta, and they are looking at issues of race that challenge a sense of community.
In an age when many men and women at our universities cannot read and write with clarity, the Meek School of Journalism and New Media at the University of Mississippi is exhibiting a missionary zeal to produce graduates of uncommon quality to inform the people of our democracy at a time when many believe America seems to have lost its way.
Challenges to Freedom of Expression
During my time as a professor I have had the privilege of viewing media in many parts of the world, and the battle for freedom of expression continues everywhere and the economic challenges seem overwhelming. My perception is that if media all over the world operated like they do in rural America, the people of the world would do well because media would thrive:
- They would not borrow huge amounts of money.
- They would focus on creatively meeting advertising needs.
- They would be local in news coverage.
Challenges for American Media
The challenges for American media are not new. Warren Buffett, the oracle of Omaha, noted during the mid-1960s that the U.S. Population was growing faster than newspapers were adding circulation.
Media corporations that are over-leveraged are facing financial difficulties that affect how much information Americans receive.
Thus, it is not the business of news and information that is in question at this time, but the stewardship of the business and, increasingly, the economic model. Clearly, there is a need to be careful how much an organization borrows in order to expand.
Corporate media had been the darlings of Wall Street. However, they were vulnerable to other parts of the financial world. One of their weaknesses had to do with the fact that they enlarged their news holes, running stories for which most people would not pay. Moreover, newspapers were virtually giving away the product daily. Their successful formula failed when poor loans and loosely governed regulations led to lowering of bond ratings and increases in interest payments and eventually to defaults.
This has been exacerbated by significant changes in retail advertising and the increase in use of the Internet for purchases.
Yochai Benker, a law professor at Harvard, has written a lot about new media. His fine volume, The Wealth of Networks, offers some useful ideas that I am sure you already know, but that it would be helpful to repeat: “A wide range of laws and institutions — from broad areas like telecommunications, copyright or international trade regulation to minutiae like the rules for registering domain names or whether digital television receivers will be required by law to recognize a particular code — are being tugged and warped in efforts to tilt the playing field toward one way of doing things or the other.”
During the next decade the results of these battles probably “will have a significant effect on how we… know what is happening in the world…, and to what extent and in what forms we will be able… to affect how we and others see the world as it is and as it might be.”
Concluding Remarks
I thank you for the opportunity to tell you about our students who have the courage to believe that discussion of public issues and brand communication can make a difference in a world that seems chaotic.
I thank you for considering young men and women of common background and heritage who have an uncommon future.
I thank you for considering the Meek School at the University of Mississippi and its students who explore the challenges that face humankind.
I offer this program as only an example of the vibrant media programs in the U.S. Susanne Shaw know these schools like nobody else. She and I will be happy to talk about this.