The intel­lec­tual jus­ti­fic­a­tion for journ­al­ism has never been kicked around with much con­vic­tion. James W. Carey gave it a shot in the mid-1990s, more in sor­row than in anger.

He was strug­gling to make sense of the twis­ted leg­acy of journ­al­ism within the Amer­ican uni­ver­sity sys­tem, but in passing he let slip the real pur­pose of learn­ing journ­al­ism in the 20C — to under­stand, doc­u­ment and cel­eb­rate the Great Amer­ican City. Con­tinue read­ing →