Local opinion: Journalism education helps keep democracy strong

The University of Arizona School of Journalism on May 16 graduated its 75th annual class, a historic occasion that was momentous for students, the school and democracy.

Fifty-nine students earned bachelor’s degrees and another 20 earned master’s degrees in bilingual and global journalism, borderlands coverage, media entrepreneurship and more.

The school was established as a department in January 1951; a handful of newly minted journalists became its first graduates four months later. Since then, more than 4,000 have earned UA journalism degrees.

Graduates have worked in more than 100 countries on seven continents. Their reporting is read, seen and heard in newspapers, on TV and radio stations, news websites, podcasts and other communication outlets.

Twenty-three alumni have won Pulitzer Prizes, and numerous others have won Edward R. Murrow Awards, Peabody Awards and Emmy Awards for broadcast journalism or documentary work. Some of them:

• Alumni Frank Sotomayor, José Galvez and Virginia Escalante and other Los Angeles Times staffers won a 1984 Pulitzer for in-depth reporting on the city’s Latino community.
• Alumnus Richard Gilman was the Boston Globe’s publisher when it won a 2003 Pulitzer for exposing the cover-up of sexual abuse by priests.
• Alumni Ryan Gabrielson and Paul Giblin won a 2009 Pulitzer for reporting in the East Valley Tribune on then-Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio downplaying violent crime investigations in favor of detaining undocumented immigrants.
• Alumna Fernanda Echavarri won a 2016 national Murrow Award at Arizona Public Media for her radio documentary on a Tucson family whose mother was deported and banned from the United States for 10 years.

They and other UA journalism alumni underpin the constitutional right to a free press, holding people in power accountable and strengthening democracy. The results are protection and affirmation of the freedoms we enjoy in this country and what we wish for the rest of humankind in a too-often cruel and stark world.

That, perhaps, is why journalists and the free press are under attack by those who make the world cruel and stark: politicians, greed-driven business leaders and other demagogues.

The news media have long been objects of criticism, and certainly some is justified. What it now experiences are unprecedented antagonism, intimidation and censorship, aimed at journalism that puts the lie to those in power who distort, mislead, exaggerate and outright lie.

Journalists, including UA graduates, bolster democracy with fearless reporting and in standing up to those seeking to stifle free expression by punishing people for telling the truth or simply disagreeing.

A starting point for budding journalists to learn their craft and how it protects democracy and free expression – the School of Journalism – is increasingly constrained by economics.

Journalism, like other academic and research units at the UA, is underfunded. Several journalism faculty retirements and departures since 2022 coincided with the campus budget crisis that led to cuts or faculty positions left unfilled.

This is not to suggest that journalism should get more resources than, say, chemistry, the music school or humanities. It is, though, a warning that without journalists educated on their First Amendment responsibilities, democracy cannot thrive or even survive.

Chris Segrin, head of the UA Department of Communication, said at a meeting last fall of the School of Journalism Advisory Council: “There is no such thing as a good university without a strong journalism program.”

And there is no such thing as a strong democracy without educated journalists who report the truth to counter the malevolence targeting accurate, democracy-sustaining information.

Celebrating 75 years of educating young journalists is joyful and a reminder that the work is not complete. It must continue this year, next year, for another 75 years and beyond.