Journalism Education

the system for training contributors to newspapers, magazines, radio, and television, as well as editors of literature for mass audiences.

The first institutions of higher education offering training in journalism were established during the second half of the 19th century in the United States and Germany. In the early 1920’s higher education in journalism was also developed in such countries as France, Italy, Great Britain, Japan, and China. Prerevolutionary Russia had no institutions offering advanced training for journalists.

In the USSR, journalism as a special branch of education developed in the early years of Soviet power. From 1918 to 1921 people were trained to work for the press at the la. M. Sverdlov Communist University and at the Russian Telegraph Agency (ROSTA). In 1921 the Moscow Institute of Journalism was founded (later renamed the Pravda Ail-Union Communist Institute of Journalism). In 1924 newspaper sections were organized at the Communist University of Toilers of the East and the Communist University of National Minorities of the West (both in Moscow). The decree of the Central Committee of the ACP(Bolshevik) of Nov. 11, 1930, On Cadres for Newspaper Work was a significant piece of legislation for journalism education.

In the 1930’s, communist institutes of journalism were organized in Moscow, Leningrad, Kharkov, Minsk, Alma-Ata, Sverdlovsk, and Kuibyshev; newspaper departments were formed in krai and oblast communist institutes; and the Editing and Publishing Institute was founded in Moscow. A net-work of technical schools to train people to work for the press and newspaper schools on the oblast, krai, and republic levels were also instituted. The communist institutes of journalism were closed in the late 1930’s; some of them, such as the ones in Leningrad and Sverdlosk, were reorganized as journalism divisions within the philology departments of universities.

During the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45 journalists were trained at the Central Newspaper Courses under the Central Committee of the ACP(Bolshevik) and at similar courses on the republic, krai, and oblast levels. In the postwar years editorial departments were established at the Higher Party School under the Central Committee of the CPSU, at party schools on the republic level, and at many interoblast party schools. At a number of universities newspaper divisions were established in the late 1940’s and journalism departments in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

Higher education in journalism is normally a five-year curriculum that includes social, economic, and philological disciplines as well as such special courses as Marxist-Leninist theory on the press, theory and practice of the press, history of Russian journalism, the foreign communist and workers’ press, and literary editing. Courses in such applied skills as typing, stenography, and photographic work are also given. Journalism students may specialize (through special courses and special seminars) in the study of problems of economics, party life, cultural and domestic problems, literature and art, international life, or specific genres of journalism. They do practice work in the appropriate departments of local and central newspapers, in publishing houses, or on radio and television staffs.

In the 1971–72 school year there were journalism departments at the Universities of Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, L’vov, the Urals (in Sverdlovsk), Byelorussia (in Minsk), Kazakhstan (in Alma-Ata), Azerbaijan (in Baku), and Tash-kent. There were journalism divisions at the Universities of Vilnius, Voronezh, the Far East (in Vladivostok), Irkutsk, Kazan, Latvia (in Riga), Rostov, Tbilisi, and Tomsk. The University of Yerevan and the Tadzhik University in Dushanbe offer journalism majors. Evening and correspondence courses in journalism on the university level have been developed. The Moscow Printing Institute has both evening and correspondence divisions. Graduate work in disciplines relating to journalism is offered at several universities, including Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, and the Urals.

In the other socialist countries training in journalism is offered at departments or divisions on the university level: in Czechoslovakia, at Prague and Bratislava; in the GDR, at Leipzig; in Rumania, at Bucharest; in Bulgaria, at Sofia; in the Mongolian People’s Republic, at Ulan Bator; in the Korean People’s Democratic Republic, at Pyongyang; and in Poland, at the Journalism Studio in Warsaw. A school of journalism for students from African countries was established in Budapest in 1962 by a decision of the International Organization of Journalists.

Journalism departments and divisions exist at many universities in capitalist countries, for example, in the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, Austria, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Japan, India, and Turkey. In 1957 an international center for higher education in journalism was established in Strasbourg through the offices of UNESCO. Journalists from many countries, including the USSR and other socialist states, take part in the work of this center. Similar international centers were established with the support of UNESCO in 1961 at Dakar University in Senegal for African countries and in Quito, Ecuador, for Latin America.