Commemorative Panel

Celebrating 50 Years of Theories and Practices in Professional Education

for Journalists around the World

Lee B. Becker

James M. Cox Jr. Center for International Mass Communication Training and ResearchGrady College of Journalism and Mass Communication

University of GeorgiaAthens, GA 30602 USA

lbbecker@uga.edu

Professional Education Section of the International Association for Media and Communication Research

for possible presentation at the Paris conference, July 2007.

Funding in 2005 for these three surveys was provided by the American Society of Newspaper1

Editors, the Arlington Community Foundation, the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass

Communication, the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication, Cox Newspapers

Inc., Gannett, the Hearst Corporation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the National

Association of Broadcasters, the Newsletter & Electronic Publishers Foundation, Newspaper Association

of America, The Newspaper Guild–CW A, the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation of the Society of Professional

Journalists, the Scripps Howard Foundation, and the Grady College of Journalism and Mass

Communication at the University of Georgia.

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The first survey of journalism and mass communication enrollments in the United States was first

reported for academic year 1933-1934. Such a survey has been conducted each year since and has

evolved into the Annual Survey of Journalism & Mass Communication Enrollments. The methods used in1

the Annual Survey of Journalism & Mass Communication Enrollments have remained unchanged since

1988. Schools included in this survey are listed in either the Journalism & Mass Communication Directory,

published by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, or The Journalist’s

Road to Success: A Career Guide, formerly published and printed by the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund,

Inc., and now available on the web. All degree-granting senior colleges and universities with courses

organized under the labels of journalism and mass communication are invited to be listed in the AEJMC

Directory. To be included in the Guide, the college or university must offer at least 10 courses in

news-editorial journalism, and those courses must include core courses, such as an introduction to the

mass media and press law and ethics, as well as basic skills courses, such as reporting and editing. Since

1992, the two journalism programs listed in the AEJMC Directory in Puerto Rico have been included in the

population.

A combination of these two directories produced 461 listings in 2005. In October 2005, a

questionnaire was mailed to the administrator of each of these programs. A second mailing of this

questionnaire was sent to the non-responding schools in December. A third mailing was sent to the non-

responding schools in January of 2006. In February, the administrators were sent a fourth mailing. In each

mailing, administrators were given the chance to return a written form or download a form from a web site

Annual Survey of Journalism &Mass Communication Enrollments

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and return it electronically. The 197 administrators of the programs who had not responded by the

beginning of April were contacted by telephone and asked to answer as many of the questions over the

telephone as possible.

The questionnaire asked the administrators to provide information on total enrollments in autumn

of 2005, enrollment by year in school, enrollment by sequence of study, enrollment by gender, and

enrollment by racial or ethnic group. In addition, administrators were asked to indicate the number and

type of degrees granted in the 2004-2005 academic year, degrees granted by sequence of study, degrees

granted by gender, and degrees granted by racial group. The questionnaire also asked about faculty size,

faculty characteristics, and faculty hiring.

Three of the 461 programs were eliminated from the population when the administrator returned

the questionnaire indicating that the program no longer offered journalism or mass communication. Data

were obtained for all of the remaining 458 programs in the population. Of the 458 returns, 321 were for

programs listed in both directories, 57 were only in the AEJMC listing, and 80 were only in the Dow Jones

Guide.

As in the past, there was great variability in the detail and precision of the information

administrators provided. Some administrators answered every question, while others answered only a few.

Data on degrees offered and on enrollments at the bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral level were obtained

from all of the 458 programs. Of all these programs, 454 offered bachelor’s degree programs, 192 offered

master’s degree programs, and 42 offered doctoral programs. Data on degrees granted at the

undergraduate level were obtained for 295 of the 454 undergraduate programs, or 65.0%. For master’s

programs, the number was 133 of 192, or 69.3%. Thirty-two of the 42 doctoral programs reported number

of degrees granted, or 76.2%.

Data from the program administrators were entered into a data file. Inconsistencies in the original

documents were noted and corrected, sometimes by eliminating obviously erroneous information. Reports

by program administrators that were not clearly in error were taken as accurate.

The AEJMC Directory lists membership of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass

Communication (ASJMC) and accreditation by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and

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Mass Communication (ACEJMC). This information was included in the data file. The most complete data

were available for the 105 accredited programs. In general, less complete data were available for the 86

schools that were members of ASJMC but not accredited by ACEJMC. The 267 schools without

accreditation or ASJMC membership had the least complete data. In general, these latter schools are

smaller than the accredited or ASJMC-affiliated schools.

These two characteristics -- accreditation and ASJMC membership -- serve as ways of

differentiating the 458 journalism and mass communication programs in the population. As was the case

in recent years, these two characteristics were used in 2005 to make projections based on the data

reported. Data from the reporting accredited schools were used to estimate characteristics of the

accredited schools for which there was any missing information. Similarly, statistical means from the

nonaccredited ASJMC schools were used to estimate missing data for similar schools, and data from the

nonaccredited schools not affiliated with ASJMC were used to estimate missing data for those programs.

The overall estimates, then, were based on complete information and best approximations about data not

reported.

The Annual Survey of Journalism & Mass Communication Enrollments includes only programs

that label themselves as having a mass communication orientation or component (through their inclusion

in the AEJMC Directory) or that have a journalism core (as indicated by their listing in the Dow Jones

Newspaper Fund Career Guide).

Data gathered by the U.S. National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) as part of the

Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) provide an additional source of information

about degrees granted in the broad field of communication.

To categorize fields of study, NCES uses a Classification of Instruction Program (CIP) code. This

code includes a general code “Communications” (09), and a code, “Communications Technologies” (10).

Subcodes of the Communication (09) code include “Communication Studies/Speech Communication and

Rhetoric,” “Mass Communication/Media Studies,” “Communication and Media Studies,” “Journalism,”

“Broadcast Journalism,” “Photojournalism,” “Journalism, Other,” “Radio and Television,” “Public

Relations/Image Management,” “Advertising,” “Public Relations, Advertising and Applied Communication,”

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and “Publishing.” Subcategories of the “Communication Technologies” code include “Radio and Television

Broadcast Technology,” “Graphic Communication,” and “Printing Management.”

In addition to these two broad codes and their subcategories, the CIP classification includes

“Speech and Rhetorical Studies” as part of the larger classification code (23) called “English Language

and Literature/Letters.”

W hat has evolved into the Annual Survey of Journalism & Mass Communication Graduates was

begun in 1964 by the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund. At present, it is designed to monitor the employment

rates and salaries of graduates of journalism and mass communication programs in the United States,

including Puerto Rico. In addition, the survey tracks the curricular activities of those graduates while in

college, examines their job-seeking strategies, and provides measures of the professional attitudes and

behaviors of the graduates upon completion of their college studies.

Since 1997, the Annual Survey of Journalism & Mass Communication Graduates has been

conducted at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia.

Each year a sample of schools is drawn from those listed in the Journalism and Mass

Communication Directory, published annually by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass

Communication, and The Journalist’s Road to Success: A Career Guide, formerly published and printed

by the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund, Inc., and now available on the web at the following site:

http://djnewspaperfund.dowjones.com/fund/pubcareerguide.asp. Schools list themselves in the AEJMC

Directory. All U.S. programs accredited by the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass

Communications and all U.S. members of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass

Communication are in the AEJMC Directory. To be included in the Newspaper Fund Guide, the college or

university must offer at least 10 courses in news-editorial journalism and those courses must include core

Annual Survey of Journalism &Mass Communication Graduates

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courses, such as an introduction to the mass media and press law and ethics, as well as basic skills

courses such as reporting and editing. Selection of schools for the sample is probabilistic, so that those

chosen represent the population of schools in the two directories. In 2005, 89 schools were drawn from

the 458 unique entries of four-year programs in the U.S. (including Puerto Rico) in the two directories.

Administrators at the selected schools are asked to provide the names and addresses of their

spring bachelor's and master's degree recipients. A questionnaire was mailed in November 2005 to all

spring graduates receiving either a bachelor's or a master's degree from the selected programs. A second

questionnaire was sent to nonrespondents in January 2006. A third mailing was sent in March 2006 to

graduates who had not responded to the first two mailings.

The questionnaire asked about the respondent's experiences both while a student and in the

months since graduation. Included were questions about university experiences, job-seeking and

employment, and salary and benefits.

In 2005, the survey was mailed to 8,439 individuals whose names and addresses were provided

by the administrators of the 89 programs. A total of 2,754 returned the questionnaires by the end of May of

2006. Of the returns, 2,555 were from students who reported they actually had completed their degrees

during the April to June 2005 period. The remaining 199 had completed their degrees either before or

after the specified period, despite their inclusion in the spring graduation lists. A total of 531

questionnaires was returned undelivered and without a forwarding address. Return rate, computed as the

number of questionnaires returned divided by the number mailed, was 32.6%. Return rate, computed as

the number returned divided by the number mailed minus the bad addresses, was 34.8%. The return rates

in 2004 were 37.2 and 39.8. In general, return rates have been declining for this and other surveys across

time. Of the 2,555 usable questionnaires in 2005, 2,412 (94.4%) were from bachelor's degree recipients

and 143 were from those who received a master's degree.

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The Dow Jones Newspaper Fund began surveying daily newspaper editors in 1970 to learn about

their hiring activities–how many people they hired, how many of them were directly from the university, and

how many of them had journalism degrees. The survey was a companion to the Annual Survey of

Journalism & Mass Communication Graduates, which was initiated by the Fund in 1964.

The Annual Survey of Journalism & Mass Communication Graduates and the Daily Newspaper

Hiring Survey moved to the Ohio State University, beginning with the 1987 graduate survey. Both surveys

moved to the University of Georgia in the autumn of 1997.

The Daily Newspaper Hiring Survey has been conducted in 1970, 1974, 1980, 1985, 1990, 1995,

2000 and 2005. In 1990, 2000 and 2005, a select number of comparable questions on hiring by news

directors in television and radio newsrooms was added to the Radio-Television News Directors

Association W omen & Minorities Survey.

In 1995, these same questions on hiring were included in a survey of television news directors

conducted at the Ohio State University as part of the SPJ Jane Pauley Taskforce on Mass

Communication Education. Beginning in 2000, the questions were included on the RTNDA Ball State

University survey of radio and television news directors.

The 2005 Daily Newspaper Hiring Survey was conducted from February through July of 2006 with

editors of all 1,550 daily newspapers listed in the Editor & Publisher International Year Book for 2005.

Persons holding the title of editor at each of the newspapers listed were sent a four-page questionnaire via

the mail in February. The questionnaire asked about newsroom hiring in 2005.

If no response was received after the initial mailing, subsequent mailings were sent in March,

May, and June of 2006. In two cases, the recipient indicated that a single newsroom produced the content

for papers with more than one title. In these cases, the data were filed as if for a single newspaper. The

newspaper with the largest circulation was retained in the data file. This reduced the total number of

newspapers in the population to 1,447.

Daily Newspaper Hiring Survey

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Of the 1,447 newspaper editors to whom a questionnaire was sent, 578 or 39.9% returned a

completed survey. Fifteen editors returned the instrument and indicated they refused to participate; the

remainder simply did not return the instrument. An analysis of return by circulation size showed that the

final sample of 578 newspapers reflected this characteristic of the population.

The 2005 RTNDA Ball State University survey was conducted by mail and fax in the fourth quarter

of 2005 among all 1,617 operating, non-satellite television stations and 9,013 U.S. radio stations. Valid

responses were obtained from 1,120 television stations (69.3%) and 209 radio news directors and general

managers, representing 613 radio stations (6.8%). The survey focuses on newsroom hiring.

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Journalism and Mass Communication Education in the United States

Dr. Lee B. Becker

Commemorative Panel: Celebrating 50 Years of Theories and Practices in

Professional Education for Journalists Around the World

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For additional information go to:

www.grady.uga.edu/annualsurveys