Eric Langborgh

     All journalism students at Missouri are required to take a class entitled "Cross-Cultural Journalism." Ostensibly intended to teach how to improve minority coverage, incorporate more minorities in newsrooms, and how to teach students to get along with and learn from other cultures, many critics feel that the class is instead used to berate non-minority men. "It is rather absurd to make some students, particularly white males, feel bad about being in journalism school," mentioned Don Ranly, a professor within the department. "Aren’t you really saying, ‘Why don’t you go away and leave room for us?’ I can’t imagine not resenting that."

     Indeed, Ranly, who labels the class "too politically correct," is not alone. Fellow faculty member Brian Brooks, head of the editorial department, contends that most professors dislike the course. On September 29 at an editorial department faculty meeting, Brooks discussed the possibility of abolishing the requirement with the dean of the journalism school, Dean Mills. The Curriculum Committee is scheduled to review the course and discuss its future later this semester.

     The course description in and of itself draws little criticism: "Cross-Cultural Journalism provides journalistic tools for the coverage of diverse ethnic, gender, ability and ideological groups inside and outside the United States. The critical role of diverse voices in a democracy will be discussed."

     Critics, though, say the implementation of the course is anything but reasonable, and is actually intolerant of the ideological diversity the course purports to promote. "My overwhelming fear is the suppression of freedom of speech," divulged Brooks, "that students cannot speak out in class for things they believe and see and hear and think—in a university class that is supposed to be teaching tolerance."

     Student evaluations have been growing increasingly critical of the course, which meets twice a week for a large lecture and a smaller discussion. Lessons lean heavily on in-class conversation. For example, a few weeks ago a panel of four "sexual minorities" led a discourse on the coverage of their community. This followed closely on the heels of the annual National Lesbian and Gay Journalists conference in San Francisco, which convened September 7-10. Conference participants advocated, among other things, that balance with traditional views on sexual morality should not necessarily be sought in coverage of the gay community. Many critics fear a similar viewpoint intolerance may be being pushed at MU.

     Brooks offered that many white students in the class have included in their evaluations a sense that they are being preached to and that they are afraid to share their opinions for fear of insulting minorities. Accuracy in Academia founder and chairman Reed Irvine agrees. "There is a very strong tendency in this country to avoid telling the truth about a lot of things because it would be offensive to certain groups," contends Irvine.

     Irvine, though, thinks the problem goes much deeper than that. "If they haven’t been able to inculcate in these students the importance of simple factual accuracy," he observed of journalism schools in general, "why do they waste time in trying to teach them about diversity? What is that going to do for more accurate reporting?"

     Irvine, who also chairs the media watchdog group Accuracy in Media, pointed to a recent quote from New York Times Executive Editor Joseph Lelyveld who said that his paper was overwhelmed with factual errors. Irvine contends that the Times recent troubles suggests ill-prepared journalism students. As one of the most prestigious newspapers in the country, the periodical grabs many of the top journalism students from MU and other leading journalism schools.

     Journalism schools ought to be teaching the importance of getting a good lead and of being concise, and they should be emphasizing the need to be accurate, balanced and fair in reporting, Irvine told Campus Report. Being pressured by minority advocacy groups, he maintained, causes journalists to neglect looking into questionable data supplied by activists for fear of being labeled intolerant or bigoted. "We have to pay attention to the facts, we have to be able to speak the truth, and the people in these minority groups have to be taught that they, too, must pay attention to the facts."