The Truth About J Schools

One has to wonder what kind of journalists the storied Columbia School of Journalism intends to produce. If the column published this month by Idris Leppla ten days ago for the Columbia Spectator gives any hint, we can expect novices of the obvious who infantilize the people who serve as their subjects. This time she uses her brother, who applied to and entered the Naval Academy at Annapolis, apparently without Idris and her mother realizing it meant joining the Navy.

The Columbia J School did not do her a favor by printing this.

And the Weekly Standard piles on.

Student Journalism Mega-Scoop
The United States Naval Academy is run by . . . the United States Navy. The Columbia Spectator has the scoop:
[...]

And this is only the first installment of a four-part series. Newsroom sources say part two will reveal that the United States Military Academy is, in fact, operated by the United States Army, and this despite the fact that the word 'Army' appears nowhere in the name of the "school."

And to read the original article The Truth About the Academies

Idris Leppa has gotten famous. Perhaps not the fame she wanted, but - Hey! - fame is fame. She seems to have gotten the message that this piece was ... what's the word: self absorbed, juvenile, condescending, poorly written, self-revealing, embarrassing, ...maybe all of those and more. So she has written a response. Here it is in part:

All I can say is that this article is not factual. It is based on emotion--and sadly emotion is what hinders rationality. Emotion and fear, emotion and uncertainty, emotion and sadness--is what prevents our clear vision and our normal perception of things. And I wrote this article as a function of my emotion. Because, truthfully, when any member of my family could be in danger (be it in the next month or next decade), I get emotional and I get fearful. Perhaps we all do. And for mothers and fathers whose lives have been bereaved by losing a son or daughter in the military, their lives may too become run by emotion.

The real question is: how do we balance an emotional knee jerk reaction to a personal experience with what should be done on a national level such that fewer families have to have this emotional shading of facts because they are too hurt to see anything else?

Read that last sentence again, and again, and again, and tell me what it means. She is a senior at Barnard/Columbia.