Journalism education needs more public relations and business emphasis, not less. That’s what immeditately occurs to me after reading 10 reasons Why Journalism Schools Should Get Rid of PR. Bob Conrad argues that moving PR programs out of J-schools and into business schools will improve the education for PR students. 

He’s probably right. But such a move would seriously damage the journalism education at the school. 

PR and journalism education need more integration, not separation. Both must now incorporate social media practices and new technology adoption. And both would be well-served by partnerships with business schools, since a journalism needs more entrepreneurs and PR “is inherently a business function in most organizations,” as Conrad writes.

To me, Conrad’s problems with journalism education represent a list of things to fix, not escape from. 

How do you know you’re a hopeless case of online geekery? When you get your wife a domain name and set up a Wordpress blog for her and call it a Christmas present.

But wait, there’s more. I also gave my son and daughter domain names so they can have cool email addresses. And I installed Drupal on their domains so they can begin publishing online with their new OLPC.

They may never use them, and that’s OK. It’s opening the door that’s important.

The spambots finally found this blog so I apologize if you saw any content vandalism here the past few days. I’ve turned off trackbacks and activated the Akismet plug-in in an attempt to keep it clean around here.

Just wondering: how do you spend your day programming a spambot to spread the garbage I had to clean off the blog and still maintain your self-respect? Is it the modern-day equivalent to TPing someone’s house?

I’m checking the place out, opening up the cupboards, figuring out what the switches turn on which lights on this shiny new Wordpress blog. It’s funny, but there are many similarities to launching a new blog on a new platform with moving into a new house or apartment. I’m excited to see what’s possible here.