From Editor & Publisher: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_con...

NEW YORK (Commentary) There's a seismic shift occurring at journalism schools. Like the industry they feed, J-schools are facing a seemingly simple problem: Evolve or die. Out with the old! The Web is the future! Old media is dead!

But in their rush to choose evolution over dissolution, many journalism schools seem to be missing the point of the digital revolution and, as a result, are short-changing their students.

First, here's a reality check for job-seeking J-school students. There are still far more (and far more high-paying) jobs in dead-tree journalism than on Web news sites, and most major media companies still derive far more profit from their print products than their Web counterparts. And while the recent recession has not been kind to print media, Web news organizations haven't fared much better, and are closing shop or laying off at a similarly furious pace.

That's not to say I'm anti-new media. On the contrary, I consume the majority of my news online, frequently write original content for my magazine's Web site, and, as one of the technology editors at a technology-focused magazine, like to think I have some understanding of new media.

But still, I'm worried about what J-schools are teaching their students.

I recently spoke to classes of undergraduate and graduate journalism students at Medill (where I studied just a few years back) and the University of Illinois. What was not surprising was how anxious the students were at the prospect of entering one of the worst media job markets ever. What was shocking was how poorly the schools seemed to be at preparing them for it.

Journalism schools seem to be under the impression that Web savviness is synonymous with a technical mastery, and are top-loading course loads with classes on coding and production. Don't get me wrong: Technical skills are useful, and knowing how to sling code will never make somebody a less desirable job candidate. But there are real problems with this emphasis.

First, it scares less technically inclined students away from the field (the same way a calculus prerequisite might scare away potential pre-med students). It also replaces much of a valuable editorial education with technical skills that can just as easily be learned online or at your local DeVry campus. Fact is, Web platforms come and go, and no coding language stays in vogue more than a few of years. Basic reporting, writing, and editing skills will never be obsolete.

But my biggest gripe with J-schools' new-found emphasis on technical mastery is that it misses the point about what it means to be a Web-savvy journalist.

A good Web journalist is able to predict what stories will work on the Web, how to package these stories, and how to make sure these stories reach a whole lot of eyeballs. If I were hiring a Web editor, my first interview questions would not be what programming languages they know, but what their strategies are for reaching out to blogs, improving SEO, and getting stories on Digg.

If I was a J-school dean, I'd offer classes on social media and blog outreach (something that is severely lacking from most J-schools), and teach students how to expand and adapt existing print stories for the Web.

And J-schools are probably not telling their students the cold, hard truth about Web production. The fact is, few jobs are as easily outsourced by media companies as Web producers, who are often either benefit-less permalancers or based in India. While Web coders and producers are often extremely creative people, they are, unfortunately, viewed by media companies as some of the most disposable and interchangeable workers.

And the negative effects of this emphasis shift are real. When I attended Medill's graduate school in 2005, I participated in a program called the Magazine Publishing Project -- a unique program that taught us nearly everything that goes into the production of a magazine, from market research, to ad sales, to feature writing. On my first day of class, I was told by a faculty member that the Project was "the crown jewel of Medill."

Today, that crown jewel is more like a Cubic zirconia. The problem is two-fold. First, the school has ordered that the program be chopped from a full course-load, presumably to make room for coding classes.

The second problem is a bit more complex. Most Medill students start out the graduate program with a quarter-long journalism basics boot camp. When I attended Medill, we declared our concentration (such as "magazine" or "broadcast") before this quarter. Now, students declare it after they've already been at Medill for several months.

And, after speaking with current Medill students and faculty, this quarter appears to be an all-out attack on old media, with students constantly being told that they will not get jobs unless they can code. The result: Most students end up declaring a new media concentration (Medill calls it "Interactive Storytelling"). In fact, so few students are currently enrolled in the Magazine Publishing Project, that a faculty member told me they had to kill some of its vital elements, including a rare tutorial on the business side of magazine publishing.

The sad result: In the rush to to train an army of coders, Medill seems to have crippled the single best and most unique program it had.