News Flash: Experience not required

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports the "shocking" news that not all journalism professors have journalism experience. This has been a matter of debate within the academy for some time, as universities require professors to have PhDs. And how many working journalists have PhDs? (For that matter, some of the best journalists I know didn't even finish school for a B.A.)

We've been lucky at our school, where we've been able to hire some excellent professionals without the advanced degrees. However, most programs are not friendly to such an arrangement, which is why my family went into debt for me to go back and get "piled higher and deeper."