Production in Journalism Schools and Future Careers

A core tenet of production can be summarized that if you are doing your job right, no one will notice. But this can come back to count against production in that when things go right, then people think that it is easy to do and therefore to replace. And as production is something unseen by the camera, it can often be lost or overlooked in favor of those seen and presented by the camera. This project was motivated from my own interest in media production and my experience at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in classes and available opportunities. And due to my own interests in production, an objective of this thesis and process was to find how my own school compared to other big journalism schools and if my interests had a possibility of turning into a viable career. This thesis focuses on broadcast media production in primarily three areas: news, sports, and entertainment. 10 different media production professionals were interviewed to get first-hand knowledge of production in these chosen media areas and journalism schools. My thesis breaks into three main topics that cover a range of aspects of production. The first topic focuses on the effects of developing technology and funding concerns. The second topic is on how production is taught or not in journalism schools. And the third topic looks at job possibilities for production. Through interviews with professionals, personal histories and job statistics, this thesis aims to show that production should be taught in journalism schools, as it is still a viable career path with possibilities beyond just the typical news newscast.