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| Established | July 30th, 1912 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Joseph Pulitzer |
Parent institution | Columbia University |
| Dean | Jelani Cobb |
| Students | 279 (Fall 2024)[1] |
| Location | ,, United States |
| Website | journalism |
Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism is the only journalism school in theIvy League, founded in 1912 byJoseph Pulitzer.The school is located at Pulitzer Hall, located at the university'sMorningside Heights campus inManhattan, New York City.
Admissions to the school are highly selective; traditionally drawing upon an international student body. Alumni have gone on to winPulitzer Prizes, or have become newsroom leaders in respected publications. The journalism school offers four graduate degree programs, in addition to offering professional development programs, fellowships, workshops and institutes, namely the Tow Center for Digital Journalism,[2] the Brown Institute for Media Innovation,[3] and theDart Center for Journalism and Trauma.[4]
The school publishes theColumbia Journalism Review, facilities with thePulitzer Prizes, and directly administers theAlfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award, theMaria Moors Cabot Prizes, theJohn Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism, theLukas Prizes, theOakes Prizes, theMeyer Berger Award, the Paul Tobenkin Memorial Award and theDart Awards for Excellence in Coverage of Trauma. It also co-sponsors theNational Magazine Awards with theAmerican Society of Magazine Editors, which administers the program.[5] The school has an accreditation from theAssociation for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.[6]
In 1892, Joseph Pulitzer, a Hungarian-born newspaper magnate, offered Columbia University presidentSeth Low funding to establish the world's first school of journalism. He sought to elevate a profession viewed more often as a common trade learned through an apprenticeship. His idea was for a center of enlightened journalism in pursuit of knowledge as well as skills in the service of democracy. "It will impart knowledge—not for its own sake, but to be used for the public service," Pulitzer wrote in a now landmark, lead essay of the May 1904 issue of theNorth American Review.[7] The university was resistant to the idea. But Low's successor,Nicholas Murray Butler, was more receptive to the plan.[8]
Pulitzer was set on creating his vision at Columbia and offered it a $2 million gift, one-quarter of which was to be used to establish prizes in journalism and the arts. It took years of negotiations and Pulitzer's death in October 1911 to finalize plans. On September 30, 1912, classes began with 79 undergraduate and postgraduate students, including a dozen women. Veteran journalistTalcott Williams was installed as the school's director. When not attending classes and lectures, students scoured the city for news. Their more advanced classmates were assigned to cover a visit by U.S. PresidentWilliam Howard Taft, a sensational police murder trial and a women's suffrage march. A student from China went undercover to report on a downtown cocaine den. A journalism building was constructed the following year at 2950 Broadway and 116th Street on the western end of the campus. Astatue of Thomas Jefferson was installed in June 1914 as a symbol of "free inquiry" exemplified by the debates between him and fellow American founder and Columbia alumnus,Alexander Hamilton, astatute of whom was unveiled directly across campus in front ofHamilton Hall six years earlier.[9]
In 1935, DeanCarl Ackerman, a 1913 alumnus, led the school's transition to become the first graduate school of journalism in the United States. As the school's reach and reputation spread (due in part to an adjunct faculty of working New York journalists and a tenured full-time faculty that included Pulitzer winnersDouglas Southall Freeman andHenry F. Pringle andLife Begins at Forty authorWalter B. Pitkin), it began offering coursework in television news and documentary filmmaking in addition to its focus on newspapers and radio. TheMaria Moors Cabot Prizes, the oldest international awards in journalism, were founded in 1938, honoring reporting in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Awards for excellence in broadcast journalism moved to the school in 1968. In 1958, the Columbia Journalism Award, the school's highest honor, was established to recognize a person of overarching accomplishment and distinguished service to journalism. Three years later, the school began publishing theColumbia Journalism Review.[10]
After joining the tenured faculty in 1950, veteranUnited Nations correspondentJohn Hohenberg became the inaugural administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes in 1954, a secondary appointment that he would hold until 1976. Ackerman was succeeded as dean in 1954 by formerAssistant Secretary of State for Public AffairsEdward W. Barrett, who served until 1968. In 1966, the school began awarding the National Magazine Awards in association with theAmerican Society of Magazine Editors. FormerCBS News presidentFred W. Friendly was appointed the same year to the tenured faculty and enhanced the broadcast journalism program alongside formerNBC News correspondentElie Abel, who served as dean from 1970 to 1979. Abel was succeeded by formerNewsweek editor and prominent New York socialiteOsborn Elliott (1979–1986), who in turn was succeeded by longtimeBill Moyers collaboratorJoan Konner (1988–1996), the school's only female dean to date. By the 1970s, the Reporting and Writing 1 (RW1) course had become the cornerstone of the school's basic curriculum. The Knight‐Bagehot Fellowship was created in 1975 to enrich economics and business journalism. In 1985, the Delacorte Center for Magazine Journalism was founded. While serving as Pulitzer administrator, formerThe New York Times managing editorSeymour Topping joined the tenured faculty in 1994.
A doctoral program was established in 1998 by communications theoristJames W. Carey, who emerged as an "editor of and contributor to many scholarly publications at a time when Columbia was urging journalism professors to do more academic research."[11] In 2005,Nicholas Lemann, two years into his tenure as dean, created a second more specialized master's program leading to a master of arts degree, prompting the hiring of political journalistThomas B. Edsall and music criticDavid Hajdu. As a result of industry changes forced by digital media, the school in 2013 erased distinctions between types of media, such as newspaper, broadcast, magazine and new media, as specializations in its master of science curriculum. The Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism, dedicated to training select students interested in pursuing careers in investigative journalism, opened in 2006. A year later, the Spencer Fellowship was created to focus on long-form reporting. TheDart Center for Journalism and Trauma relocated to Columbia in 2009 to focus on media coverage of trauma, conflict and tragedy.[12] In 2010, the Tow Center for Digital Journalism was created. TheBrown Institute for Media Innovation was launched under the aegis of formerBell Labs statistician and data scientistMark Henry Hansen in 2012.[13][14]
The school's ten-month Master of Science (M.S.) program offers aspiring and experienced journalists the opportunity to study the skills, art and ethics of journalism by reporting and writing stories that range from short news pieces to complex narrative features. Some students interested in investigative reporting are selected to study at the Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism, a specialization of the M.S. program. Documentary and data journalism specialization programs are offered as well. The M.S. program is also offered on a part-time basis.[15]
A year-long M.S. program in data journalism teaches the skills for finding, collecting and analyzing data for storytelling, presentation and investigative reporting.[16]
The school offers several dual-degree programs in collaboration with other schools at Columbia: journalism and computer science, journalism and international affairs, journalism and law, journalism and business, and journalism and religion. The school also offers international dual-degree programs withSciences Po inParis, France and theUniversity of Witwatersrand inJohannesburg, South Africa.[17]
The smaller and more specialized, nine-month Master of Arts (M.A.) program is for experienced journalists interested in focusing on a particular subject area: politics, science, business and economics or arts and culture. M.A. students work closely with journalism professors and take courses in other academic departments and schools at the university. The program is full-time.[18]
The doctoral program draws upon the resources of Columbia in a multidisciplinary approach to the study of communications. Ph.D. students craft individual courses of study to acquire deep knowledge in an area of concentration through research and coursework in disciplines ranging from history, sociology or religion to business or international affairs.[19]
A six-week graduate-level course on book, magazine, and digital publishing, known as theColumbia Publishing Course, has been offered since 2000, when the program transferred fromRadcliffe College.[20]
The Bronx Beat, established in 1981 and published Mondays, has been the journalism school's weekly student publication.[21][better source needed]Uptown Radio is a weekly news magazine and podcast modeled after NPR'sAll Things Considered. It is produced by the students of the Radio Workshop, an advanced audio course at Columbia Journalism School. Uptown Radio has been the school's longest-running continuous webcast, broadcasting each Thursday at 4 pm, from February through May, since 1996. Uptown Radio contains original feature reports as well as interviews and newscasts in service of the listeners in New York City and the world beyond.[22][23]
The Columbia Journalism School directly administers theAlfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award, theMaria Moors Cabot Prizes, theJohn Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism, theLukas Prizes, theOakes Prizes, theMeyer Berger Award, the Paul Tobenkin Memorial Award and theDart Awards for Excellence in Coverage of Trauma. It also co-sponsors theNational Magazine Awards with theAmerican Society of Magazine Editors, which administers the program.[5]
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