Another adjunct weighs in on the credentials of journo profs

Good story from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Excerpt:

Recently I mentioned to a couple of friends who have forged distinguished journalistic careers that, in my two most recent teaching positions, I have been replaced by a 25-year-old woman with no professional journalism experience and a 24-year-old man with a similar lack of experience. Each is primarily responsible for the journalism program at her and his educational institution.

A Ph.D. from the least rigorous of academic institutions -- including online -- trumps not only my master's degree in communication but a combined 28 years of experience in journalism and public relations. Though I have a withdrawal-in-good-standing card from the Newspaper Guild, I do not have a doctorate.

And this is a large part of what is wrong with academia right now. People who have only studied journalism--and earned those multiple letters after their names--are prized over those who have done it and are actually expert at it. This does not serve students or media. It does reward the professional student and his or her employers who likewise are good at academia but lousy at the professions for which they're supposed to be prepping their students. When the department I worked in replaced practical writing and media history classes with more studies of communications theory, I knew they were doomed.