A J-Schooler Makes A Name for Himself

C.W. Anderson dedicated his recently-completed journalism dissertation to covering, well, journalism. He tells Gelf what he found out about its recent past, and his prognosis for its future.

Max Lakin

The practice of journalism is in a bad way, yet the study of journalism has never been more vibrant. One case in point is Chris Anderson, whose recently completed dissertation at Columbia University's Journalism School, "Breaking Journalism Down," is an exhaustive chronicle of modern news-gathering in Philadelphia, and how that city's traditional arms of information attempted to adapt to what seems like the ceaselessly-mutating ground rules of the sport.