Selling a dream? Hardly

If you graduated — or are about to — with an undergraduate journalism degree this year, you got screwed.

Weaving together the collected wisdom of philosopher Pierre Bourdieu, the naivete of Romenesko-trounced intern Krystal Grow, the we-don’t-need-no-stinkin’ J-schools alarmism of Michael Lewis, mediabistro’s Greg Lindsay tells young J grads that they wasted $30,000 a year on tuition.

Says Lindsay, billed by mediabistro as a freelance writer in Brooklyn who writes about the media:

You thought you were buying a set of skills, credentials, and quality time with the placement office. And you did. But your professors also sold you a mindset, a worldview, an ideology—one in which newspapers are God’s work, bloggers are pagans, and your career trajectory is a long, steep, but ultimately meritocratic climb to a heavenly desk at The New York Times or 60 Minutes.

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A defender of anonymice speaks up

For those of you less addicted to Romenesko than I am, Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post offers a spirited defense of the use of anonymous sources in today’s edition.

Using the notion of magician’s assistant to describe the relationship between journalists and the White House, Robinson argues that the Bushies are so well-versed at getting the media to talk about themselves and their vetting and editing processes that the real questions go unanswered.

It’s a worthwhile read.