On the Media on The Sound of Young America

It’s the podcast equivalent of chocolate and peanut butter.

Journalism school applications way up

I’d heard it before that when the job market is down, grad school applications go up. With the double-whammy of an already reeling newspaper (and TV and radio news) industry and a general down economy, I guess it’s no surprise that j-school applications are way, way up:

The Pew Research Center estimates 5,000 newspaper jobs were lost in 2008. Since 2001, more than 10,000 newspaper journalists have lost work, leaving the total count of those still employed at 47,000 nationwide. It’s getting worse, fast. Erica Smith, who runs the online layoff tracker Paper Cuts, counts nearly 7,500 newsroom jobs lost so far this year.

Yet punishing times for journalism have been an unlikely boon for journalism schools. Would-be Woodwards and Bernsteins hiding out from the bad economy or learning new skills to compete stormed the admissions offices of top-tier programs last fall. Columbia, Stanford and NYU applications increased 38%, 20% and 6%, respectively, from the previous year. Same thing at state schools. The University of Colorado (up 11%), University of North Carolina (up 14%) and University of Maryland (up 25%) all saw gains. “I’m amazed that enrollment continues to be so healthy,” says Associate Professor Stephen Solomon at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.

Costs are up too. The average price for graduate school and living expenses has reached $31,000 per year. This despite earnings for journalists with a graduate degree averaging just $40,000 in 2007 ($10,000 more than for those with just bachelor’s degrees).

“I’ve never met a single person in 35 years who went into journalism out of pure economic reason,” explains Nicholas Lemann, dean of the Columbia School of Journalism. “It doesn’t make us recession-proof, but it makes us less recession responsive.”

What are all these people going to do for a living? Some may actually get jobs in journalism. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, by 2016 the number of positions for entry-level reporters and news anchors will increase 2%, while those for experienced writers and editors will grow 10%. Expect trade publications, freelance work and digital media to supply the bulk of the jobs.

I choose to blame the crush of applications for me getting turned down by Columbia and not my admittedly appalling undergrad grades. (But hey, it was more than 15 years ago! Look, Columbia, awards!)

Naturally, the guys on TWiT seemed to think this was about bloggers wanting to go to j-school. When all you’ve got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Twenty-one months

He will sign “all done” whenever he’s done with food or an activity or anything. The other day, he signed “sleep” and “all done” when he was in the bath. I held up the towel, he climbed up into it, and didn’t object to being put into his pajamas or bed — he had asked for it, after all.

“Eat” is his primary word now, which he will couple with the sign to make sure we know that he’s hungry. He will also race around the house saying “cat, cat, cat” whenever he’s on the hunt for Hanna (especially) or Lucky.

He’s been in a better mood generally now that his primary needs can be communicated to us most of the time, although he’s generally a pretty happy guy even before this current linguistic burst.

Harper’s Island – Episode 1

True to the slasher genre, it’s off to a bit of a slow start, but it’s good enough for me to keep watching. The cast is better than expected, and the soundtrack is horror movie-perfect.

There’s a total of 13 episodes, ending in July. There’s also an accompanying series of webisodes, Harper’s Globe, about what’s happening to the intern at the island’s paper, the Globe, at the same time as the events of the TV series. Aspects of the TV and Web shows will apparently cross over occasionally. There’s even an iPhone app.

A week in words

It’s been a busy week for James.

He’s been “reading” his (excellent) book Snugglepuppy by Sandra Boynton, complete with pointing to the “oooooo”s in the story every time the dog says it, and has even constructed new ooos in the bathtub with his bath letters and numbers.

He’s saying what sounds like “mehmeh” for “mama.”

He’s finding ducks in books, on TV, among his toys or wherever and yelling “gak, gak” (the Q sound is tricky) when his search is a success.

And, the other night, when he was done with dinner, he signed “all done” (brushing invisible crumbs away off your chest) and pushed his food away.

He’s not doing any of it but the oooooos and the gaks consistently, but he’s picked up the regularity of all his speaking and signing. His baby talk days are clearly coming to an end.