MSM Finishing School

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A long-time feeder to the mainstream media, Columbia's journalism school is currently training a new crop of grad students that are already cutting corners and flouting the rules just like the pros do it.

Columbia University officials are lowering the boom on some graduate journalism students suspected of cheating on, of all things, an ethics exam.
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The exam in question consisted of two essay questions to be completed in 90 minutes any time during a 36-hour period.

Students who took the test early were instructed to avoid discussing the questions with those planning to take it later, but the warning was ignored.
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Vice Dean David Klatell told students in an e-mail that there had been a "serious problem" with the final and ordered them to attend a special session of the class "Critical Issues in Journalism" today - or fail.
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The course, which includes such issues as "Why be Ethical?" and "Tribal Loyalty vs. Journalistic Obligation," is taught by New York Times columnist Samuel G. Freedman, who could not be reached yesterday.

It's almost brilliantly ironic, but irony implies an unexpected result.  Somehow, I don't find it particularly shocking that the incubator for tomorrow's media elite houses at least occasional blatant disdain for propriety and ethical conduct.

Let's see if we can stoke the irony a bit by pondering some choice words from the J-school website.

Never before has the need for smart, well-trained, ethical journalists been so great as it is now, in these early years of the 21st century.                

Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism has been preparing journalists in a program that stresses academic rigor, ethics, journalistic inquiry and professional practice for nearly one hundred years.             

Since all journalism students at Columbia are equally remarkable, they don't trifle with grades.  But that doesn't mean failure isn't an option.

[P]oor performance on the Law or Critical Issues final could lead to failure; and proof of cheating or plagiarism in any course can instantly lead to failure and dismissal from the school.

So cheating on the Critical Issues final would seem to be a kind of perfect storm of academic misadventure.

Nicholas Lemann, dean of the journalism school, offered some mitigating perspective.

“Our students are strivers,” he added. “But they are striving to get good clips. It is not like law school, where fine differences in points make all the difference in the world.”

Nah, don't sweat the fine points.  Fast and loose.  Fake but accurate.  It is not like law school.

[Others have noted Lemann's quote seemed to be a reference to the school eschewing grades, not the importance of being thorough and accurate.  Looking back at the context of the quote in the Times piece, that appears to be the case (thus making me unthorough and inaccurate).  Chalk up an irony point against me.]

Elsewhere:  Michelle Malkin, American Pundit, Common Sense Journal, Hot Air, Newsbusters

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Update:  Students are weighing in at The Tabloid, the blog for Columbia journalism students.

Update:  I've just received the following update from a J-school student:

[T]he entire class has an ethics essay due next week.  It seems no further action will be taken to find out who cheated, because it came from an anonymous tip - ironic, considering all semester we were taught to avoid the use of anonymous sources.

That one is ironic.

It's also contrary to what Radar Online characterized yesterday as a looming "Out yourself or you'll all have to suffer" situation.  Any attempts that may have been made to sweat out the perpetrator(s) must not have been fruitful. 

A stated focus of the course being "Tribal Loyalty vs. Journalistic Obligation" it seems the former won out today, the guilty parties deftly calling what appears to have been the administration's bluff.

Update:  Gawker says it's received the text of the special essay topic.

Write an essay of up to 500 words addressing the following situation:

You are the executive editor of a newspaper. You receives a tip from a credible source that one or more unspecified articles in recent editions of the newspaper contain fabricated material. No more details are given. Although word of the allegation quickly spreads through the newsroom, no one on the reporting staff admits to responsibility. As executive editor, what are your concerns and what do you do? Why? What are your expectations of the staff's reaction to the situation and your response to it?

Be sure to justify the actions you choose to take.

You are allowed to use your own brain and whatever other nonhuman sources you want in preparing this essay, but you are not allowed to discuss it with other human beings.

The essay will be evaluated as part of the final exam. It is due by 5:00pm, Thursday, December 7, and should be placed in the box labeled "Critical Issues Essays" in the deanery on the 7th floor.

I see a lot of traffic coming in from the columbia.edu domain.  Can any "Critical Issues" students confirm this is the essay question?  If so, this whole affair is getting so recursive and self-referential, it's starting to make my head hurt.

Still, as the school undoubtedly houses a lot of talented writers, I imagine the topic would spawn some pretty creative and tantalizing responses.  So if any students are willing to share their essays (obviously, only after the submission deadline and only if so doing isn't verboten), I'd be happy to post them here. 

Update:  The New York Observer's Media Mob blog lists the same essay question and also reprints the e-mails sent to students summoning them to the special class session.  Some anonymous J-school commenters disagree with the Observer's on-site reporter's characterization of the administration's admonishings that students not talk to journalists.

My source agrees with the anonymous commenters.

It's definitely not true.  The administration said they recognize that everything that went on would find its way to the press.