Is training in journalism useful/indispensable? Some lessons from the past and the present to prepare the future

Abstract

This article analyses the numerous and recurrent criticisms aimed at the training of journalists (superficiality, formatting, technicality, inefficiency towards labour market and new technological tools - Internet, social reproduction) and tries to place them in a historical and comparative perspective. Establishing journalism schools, rather than arising from a willingness to prepare for technical tools, was part of an ideological project whose origins and foundations were later forgotten. The debate over the balance between theory and practice has been repeated for a century. In the meantime, training has moved away from academic culture to respond directly to the supposed - and contradictory - needs of the employers. Future trainings are those that demonstrate to be able to produce professionals who will be able to respond to the challenges of information in the future, backed by a solid culture, an essential condition for a critical mind.