The Press: Six Ignorant Men

The toughest critics of U.S. journalism schools have always been journalists. They range from the self-taught reporter who resents any man with a college degree to the well-educated editor who objects to watering down college curriculums with courses in headline writing. Last week the University of New Mexico's Keen Rafferty, 59, chairman of the smallest accredited journalism department in the U.S. (two faculty members, 45 students), talked back to some of journalism's biggest critics with some rip-roaring criticism of his own.

Addressing the American Association of Schools and Departments of Journalism at Ann Arbor, Mich., Rafferty, the group's outgoing president, accused six...