The Brazilian Senate recently bucked a 2009 ruling by the South American country's Supreme Court when it approved a bill reestablishing the requirement that all practicing journalists have an advanced degree. The following post is part of series produced by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas debating the requirement. We invite you, the reader, to share your opinion in the comments section below.
See the first post in this series here, with the opinions of two Brazilian journalism professors.
Read the original post here in Portuguese.
Con: Thiago Jansen*
I believe that graduating with a degree in journalism doesn't make you a great journalist. I'm 24 years old, finishing my degree in journalism at one of the most prestigious federal universities in Brazil and I learned more about the practice of journalism from my internships than in the classroom. That's why I'm inclined to believe that any cultured, intelligent person, with or without a degree, can practice journalism.
That's not to say that an education in journalism is a waste of time. The university helps with the theoretical, intellectual and ethical aspects of the field. It opened my horizons and provided me with experiences and connections I wouldn't have otherwise.
If journalism didn't require a degree when I started school, I could have developed a specialization in law, economics, or science that, in the long run, might have made me a better journalist.
The argument that the end of the degree requirement devalues journalism is wrong. Media companies would be shooting themselves in the foot by hiring poorly qualified journalists. Companies are going to go for the best product and, by extension, improve their sales. A journalist's worth comes from things outside a degree.
*Jansen is a journalism student at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro's Communication School. He currently works for the newspaper O Globo.
Pro: Ricardo Cabral*
The media, the mediators of the public sphere, are, above all, craft discourse in a society. They have the power to define public debate through who is and is not heard. This is why it should be obligatory to understand the process of journalism beyond words on a page. I don't defend degree requirements to build up a professional sector; it's importance depends on its social function.
Long ago, it became clear that a one-month internship taught a student much more about reporting and editing than four years in the classroom. Like the saying goes, good journalism is taught in the streets.
But there is a sliver of journalism that you don't learn from practice alone. This sliver, central to our professional integrity, is what keeps us from being used like pawns by the powers that be, working only to satisfy outside interests. Raising this kind of professional consciousness is exactly the role of the schools.
*Cabral is a journalism student at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro's Communication School. He works for the magazine Piauí.
