UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication confronts evolving field

The proposed name change for the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication is one example of the ways in which the journalism industry and its schools are rapidly evolving.

Pending University approval, the school will become the School of Media and Journalism.

The 2013-14 academic year marked the third consecutive year in which enrollments in nationwide journalism schools declined, according to the University of Georgia’s Annual Survey of Journalism & Mass Communication Enrollments.

But at UNC, the journalism school has grown in enrollment in the past two years.

Chris Roush, business journalism professor and senior associate dean for undergraduate studies, said the journalism school is having trouble making enough room for students interested in a journalism major.

“That’s just not what we’re experiencing here,” Roush said of the study. “I don’t know what’s going on at other schools, but here, we’re struggling to find spots for everybody.”

Roush said there is a stigma around the term “journalism” because of the fall of print journalism. But he said the school offers more than traditional journalism.

“We’ve explained that there’s a lot of other different things here in the school we can do,” he said. “It’s a situation where students can have a degree in journalism when they leave here and do just about anything.”

He said the importance of journalism and the way it is practiced has not changed. What has changed is the way it’s being delivered.

“We’re just seeing the jobs are going into other places than just newspapers,” he said. “I think all you have to do is look what’s happening in Ferguson, Mo., to see how important journalism is to society.”

Another UGA study on graduates from the nation’s journalism schools said bachelor’s degree recipients reported the same number of job offers, level of employment and level of success in finding work as they did the previous year.

Jay Eubank, director of career services at the journalism school, said one reason for UNC’s steady enrollment is the public relations and advertising concentrations, which make up 60 percent of the journalism school.

As for traditional journalism, Eubank said he does not see the job market turning around. He said it is important for students interested in journalism careers to keep a broad view of how to use a reporting skill set in other ways.

“Journalism is an industry that’s just crying out for innovation,” Eubank said. “The hardest part is figuring out ways that you can jump on board and find companies that will pay you a salary to work on that kind of innovative project.”

Meghan Lyons, who graduated from the UNC business journalism program in 2013 and now works for Google, is a student who figured that out.

Lyons works to integrate Google products, such as YouTube and Google Hangout, into the online strategies of athletes.

She said the business journalism program helped her transition into the working world smoothly.

“It has all these different paths and allows you to be creative and sort of go down different roads,” she said.

The leader of the UGA studies, Lee Becker, said thinking of journalism differently is part of the readjustment of the field.

“I think if you ask most young people if journalism is growing they would associate journalism with newspapers and say it’s a dying field,” she said.

“To an extent, the term journalism is dragging us down.”

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