One can only hope there were j-school-trained reporters around to adequately reflect the racists' views.

Because without it, sometimes bigots wouldn't get a fair hearing.

Good news: The Times reports that even though media as we know it is dying, demand for a degree in journalism still thrives among the nation's wealthy, aimless kids who aren't smart enough for law school. This month, j-schools "will churn out more graduates than ever into a job market that is perhaps more welcoming to entry-level multimedia-taskers than it is to veterans who began their careers hunting and pecking on Olivetti typewriters." Speaking of taskers, the article includes all the usual tropes about new technologies and varying content platforms, and, of course, lots of self-justificatory talk about "callings" and "sacrifices." In fact, the only thing this piece is missing is the obligatory quote from noted j-school expert Greg Lindsay. Apparently, taking a trip out to the airport is a little too much to expect from Kit Seelye.

There is no more important training for a young journalist than a lesson in how to hold your liquor. And there is no better way to learn to hold your liquor than at an open bar you can't get from. Hence the annual Columbia J-School booze cruise, at which this year — this is our favorite part — it seems the cocktailing will begin at 4 p.m. Of course, while an open bar would be ideal, the j-school currently charges its students a mere $38,500 in tuition and fees, and so it can afford only a cash bar. And, even better, a "cash food bar" — unless students shell out six bucks for the buffet, they're stuck with only "chips and salsa, and crudite with herbed dipping sauce." Dress is "reporter semi-formal," which seems easy enough until you remember how reporters dress, and the full email announcement is after the jump.

Damn Bonnie Fuller for writing that massively titled book of hers — over ten years since her initial rise to legendary monsterhood, the release of The Joys of Much Too Much : Go for the Big Life—The Great Career, The Perfect Guy, and Everything Else You've Ever Wanted is the only justifiable reason that we're still subjected to profiles of AMI's queen bee. And so today brings yet another she's-a-tough-bitch article from the Sun, in which she divulges, "As a child, I liked to be bossy." How totally surprising. Also surprising is the revelation that Fuller just doesn't get it:

It is, for the most part, a depressing time to be in the reporting game. Newspapers are dying quickly; magazines are dying only slightly more slowly; and the network news divisions are basically already dead. People in the business are wondering what they'll do; people not in the business are glad they're not; and those in it who are young enough, and smart enough, are making plans to get out. Shockingly, though, The Hartford Courant — American's oldest continuously published newspaper, so they've got something riding on this — has found a group of people bullish on the future of this journalism thing. Is one an upstart analyst, who's found some good news buried in a balance sheet somewhere? Nope. Is there some think-tank graybeard who actually has something good to say about how kids these days are doing journalism? Of course not. Perhaps the one working reporter who finally found employment security and a 401(k) that's not underwater? No way.

Lock your doors and stock up on bottled water: Today's Sun reports that 16 bright-eyed, bushy-tailed little bunnies from the master's program in arts journalism at Syracuse have invaded the island as part of of a 10-day immersion course. During their time here, they will RAPE AND PILLAGE our artistic resources, DEFILE our professional journalists, and FROTH about how they paid tens of thousands of dollars to learn "to take the small journalism jobs and assignments as a means of eventually landing the bigger ones."

• As the news business reels — layoffs, papers for sale, Google Base, Judy Miller — j-students become even more characteristically naive and optimistic. [USAT]
• Jon Friedman thinks Adam Moss's New York can be one of the legendarily great magazines, like Gurley Brown's Cosmo, Ross and Shawn's New Yorkers, or Felker's New York. Moss's staffers, meantime, are all afraid they're going to be fired. [MW]
• This just in: Howie Kurtz has conflicting roles, covering media for both WP and CNN. As he has for years. [NYT]
• Times public editor Barney Calame's latest earth-shattering announcement: "Anonymous sourcing can be both a blessing and a curse for journalism." [NYT]
• Miller got axed and Woodward won't because Woodward's one of the cool kids and Miller isn't. Or something like that. [BG]
• On CNN, Maureen Dowd — did you know she wrote a book? — calls for more female columnists. [E&P]

• Philadelphians don't believe the Times's sixth-borough crap any more than we do. [Inquirer]
• Because no else seems to have any idea, CBS asks its interns how to save the Evening News. [NYO]
• Officialy, all Timesmen love Judy Miller. Confidentially, not so much. Something for OTR sources to consider: The way you talk about Judy, how far do you think moonlighting E&P newshound Joe Strupp will go to protect your identities? [Salon]
• The Voice calls Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria the pundit world's Backstreet Boy, whatever that means. , egregiously ignoring George Stephanopoulos. [VV]
• A j-school prof wonders, should I tell my students the truth, that the business kind of sucks? Nah, of course not. Where would we be without irrationally earnest j-students? [E&P]