Editorial: Journalism approved

At its meeting last Thursday, the Arts and Science Council approved a new certificate in Policy Journalism and Media Studies. This new certificate adds yet another option for students and will provide the University with a new program for students to acquire valuable, real-world skills.

Certificate programs in general are valuable for three reasons. First, they are interdisciplinary, allowing students to explore an area that incorporates aspects from many different disciplines, letting students become acquainted with multiple departments and forcing them to gain skills in synthesizing and analyzing information in multiple ways. Second, certificate programs often provide students with real, practical skills that traditional majors and minors do not. For students who are interested in leaving Duke and going into a career such as journalism, certificate programs providing an education in needed skills are invaluable. Third, the certificate program provides another option for students to accomplish a certain course of study that they can put on their resume to show what they have accomplished at Duke. That is, instead of a student getting little recognition for their coursework, certificates allows such a student to get rewarded.

Journalism is a particularly important field for Duke to have a certificate in. It is a field in which there are very specific skills that students can be taught and skills that they can practice and improve on. Moreover, journalism is an extremely important field, with journalists having enormous power to influence popular opinion. As a result, Duke benefits from its students going into this field and the University should ensure that these students are as well-trained in the art and practice of journalism as possible.

One aspect of the journalism program that is especially encouraging is its capstone course, which will not only provide a final in-classroom experience but also an internship experience providing all students with real-world experience in the field of journalism. Journalism is a field where only so much can be learned theoretically in the classroom and where one must actually practice the craft. Moreover, the certificate's requirement of a course in journalism ethics is very important, since ethics form the backbone of good journalism.

Hopefully, this program will encourage more students to participate in journalism and give those students already at Duke who want to become involved in journalism another outlet to do so. In the future, perhaps the University should foster a relationship with the journalism program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which would give students even more opportunities in the field.