I absolutely think a "master's" in journalism is unnecessary. The only reason for it is the connections one can make at Berkeley or wherever. It's completely redundant.

Keep journalism as an undergrad degree — I have one and I'm working — but some changes I think would be beneficial are: require that a student learn journalism along with a specialized area; if the student wants to write about politics, they need to be versed in poli-sci; if the student wants to write about music and art like every cliche wanna-be writer, they have to be versed in music or art theory and history; same with business and science and so on. That would make the student obtain another skill/knowledge in the likely event that they actually hate the field of journalism.

Next, merge all broadcast and online and "print" into one school. No more difference between broadcast and print and web and photography; it has to be all inclusive so student will have more skills. Some departments are doing this; others need to jump on ASAP.

A core requirement needs to include knowledge of public records and the laws required to obtain. "Investigative" reporting shouldn't be a specialty of the talented students, it should be taught to every journalism student and it should be graded.

Lastly, business courses are a must (make it a required mini minor), and every department has to instill the common-sense notion that news organizations cannot give their product away for free and expect to be profitable. Advocate for the industry, which means paywalls. Don't just tell the students "the industry is tough;" fucking make some noise and instill a sense of pride instead of placing too much importance on hash tags and social media popularity. If students are paying for a journalism degree, journalism departments need to in turn advocate for paid content. The "free" news revolution needs to end and J-schools need to be a part of that.

Can every twentysomething write something in Twitter? Of course, but that's not the extent of online journalism these days, despite this writer's narrow presentation of it. It would be like saying this blog post is a work of online journalism, quoting another piece of reporting to justify a shallow opinion (which is fine for a blog, but don't call it reporting for one second).

Can every twentysomething out of J-school craft a news lede, dig for documents, interview public figures, etc.? No, and twentysomethings on the internet believing Gawker blogs and Twitter and Reddit are journalism are being fooled. That's why J-school is necessary, with some changes. The end.