PHIL LEWIS: April 18, 2011 ... Journalism isn't 'dying profession' after all

Photo by DAVID ALBERS

Phil Lewis

Trustees at Florida Gulf Coast University will be asked Tuesday to approve a new degree program that’s close to my heart.

If the vote goes the way we hope, approximately 40 students will be hard at work this fall on a bachelor of arts degree in journalism.

Say what? A degree in journalism?

If you read the headlines, including a few that have appeared in this newspaper, you may think journalism is a dying profession,

Some will have you believe the casket has been lowered and the hole is being filled with dirt.

The administrators at FGCU aren’t buying it.

They have done their homework and are convinced journalism has a bright future.

Sure, the news industry is changing — as if it has ever not been changing — but they know newsrooms will survive. Newsrooms will even thrive, meaning there will be a constant need for smart, skilled reporters, photographers and editors.

FGCU believes the program will be popular with today’s student.

That, too, may surprise a few.

Journalism programs across the nation are growing rapidly, according to the report sent to trustees in support of the new program, especially in Florida.

Florida Atlantic University north of Fort Lauderdale has seen its program double to 500 majors in the past five years. A spike in enrollment has been reported at the University of North Florida as well.

Both those programs concentrate on “multimedia” journalism, the ability to report, edit and produce high-quality news stories across all “platforms” — an industry buzzword that takes in newspapers, broadcast television, the Web, smart phones and tablets, like the iPad.

The FGCU program aims to turn out multimedia journalists as well.

Here are details contained in the report to trustees:

■ The proposed curriculum consists of 120 hours. The first 60 hours will involve general education courses; the second 60 will be for core journalism work and interdisciplinary courses.

■ Each degree-seeking student will have an opportunity to complete a three-credit internship, which will entail on-the-job learning at approved news organizations.

■ Graduates will have the knowledge and skills needed to create journalistic content for any news organization, whether that news is delivered via print, online, video, audio, mobile technology or otherwise.

■ Forty students are expected to enroll the first year, based on trends at other universities, with a surge in enrollment in the third year “as students learn about the major.”

■ Projected cost of the program in its fifth year will be just shy of a half-million dollars. The first year cost has been put at $155,258.

■ The new bachelor’s degree program will be part of the College of Arts and Sciences.

I admit that a decade and a half ago, when I was putting stories on our front page about FGCU breaking ground on a stretch of land between Fort Myers and Naples, I dared to have a fantasy or two about there one day being a journalism program.

Just five years ago, it wasn’t such a fantasy.

The wheels were in motion thanks to Lyn Millner, a journalist and educator intent on creating a bachelor’s degree program.

It got sidetracked a bit with the downturn in the economy and the subsequent belt-tightening forced on all 11 of the state’s universities.

Since then, other universities have demonstrated that journalism — especially the multimedia variety — is in great demand and spurs enrollment.

And, that warms my heart.

Lewis is editor of the Daily News. His email address is plewis@naplesnews.com.