Kelsey Proud

Mary Paxton Keeley (Click photo to visit source, The Harry S. Truman Library)

She was a first at the first.

The first female graduate at the first journalism school in the world.

But in my haphazard stumbling upon her story last night, Mary Paxton Keeley grabbed my attention for something other than her landmark status in the history of my profession.

I felt a strange kinship when reading about her life and times. It was't so much the fact that she graduated from the Missouri School of Journalism in 1910, almost exactly a century before I will in 2010, or how those 100 years changed the journalistic issues she faced. It was more how the century between us seems to have changed nothing at all.

I reached these conclusions by reading the transcript of a 1966 interview Keeley gave to James R. Fuchs I found on the Truman Library Website after a simple Google search for Keeley. 

"...when I was graduated from the School of Journalism, we had Journalism Week and Winifred Black, who was one of Hearst's great writers, came down to speak, and she said to me, 'What are you going to do?'

"Be a reporter where I can get a job."

Keeley's simplistic answer to Black perhaps spawned from a sense of uncertainty as to whether , as a woman, she would even be able to land a job in such a male-dominated field.

The uncertainty in today's journalism graduate's answer is not necessarily rooted in sexual politics but in economic strife and industrial transformation. Keeley didn't have the luxury to be specific about her future in journalism, and neither do we.

The age-old debate of whether journalism school itself is an advantage or just a waste of four years and thousands of dollars is actually a bit older than I realized. I'll let Keeley explain:

"I was the first woman reporter in Kansas City and was a curiosity. The Star wouldn't take a woman. They had a contempt for journalism schools. You know, schools of journalism didn't have any standing at all at first and newspapermen laughed at them, and to think now they can't fill the demand for their students. Times have changed."

I've argued, both on-line and in discussions with others, that journalism school is indeed a good idea. For Keeley it may have been quite a leap of faith, but for us now, j-school is a fantastic place to practice our craft, refine our skills, network and be mentored. I don't think my four years in j-school were a waste of money, or of time. It is the perfect incubator for journalists who will have both practical skills and ethical knowledge.

But yes, Mary, times have changed, and changed again.  We're flooding the market, with more and more students enrolling in journalism schools each year, but fewer traditional positions for those graduating to fill. The incubators are becoming far too crowded.

But we know all of this. All of it. And so did they.

So when Keeley went back into reporting after a hiatus in Mississippi she consulted Walter Williams (yes THAT Walter Williams), the author of the journalist's creed and Dean who started the Missouri School of Journalism.

What did Williams tell Keeley to do? Specialize. Sound familiar? Williams to Keeley:

"'You have to be a specialist. Nobody that knows anything about home economics can write; nobody that can write knows anything about home economics, so you go get a degree in home economics.'"

That just gave me a chuckle. We're told the same thing, but insert-your-topic-of-choice-here instead of home economics. I'm not saying I disagree at all. I think specialization does result in higher quality journalism, but it just made me laugh good old Walter Williams agreed with me a century ago.

To close I'd like to toast Mary Paxton Keeley. For someone who was a first at the first, I hope she's happy she's sparked a curiosity in me, and hopefully a conversation among all of us.