The editor glared at the job-seeking undergraduate and rasped out just one question: "You ever been to journalism school?" Uh, stammered the student, no. Snapped New York Herald Tribune City Editor (1928-35) Stanley Walker: "You're hired."
Such reactions to journalism schools have mostly gone out of style with U.S. editors who no longer seem to fly into spike-throwing rages at the notion that the craft of journalism can be taught in any school except the school of pavement-pounding, doorbell-ringing experience. Most papers now prefer to hire the J-school graduate because he does have...