ABSTRACT
Despite substantial occupational, organizational, and societal pressures, the liberally educated professional has the ability to reason independently and possesses a capacity for “moral imagination” to get around major constraints and act on principle, rather than to rely unthinkingly on occupational or company conventions, policies, and rules of procedure. The New Professionalism may be a switch in time for the industry as well as for the discipline. Broader personnel and management reforms are long overdue in the media industries, which, in general, treat their younger employees badly. Media managers are getting a “good deal” and see no need for change. Media and information companies, on the other hand, are being asked to justify the special treatment —their “franchise” —guaranteed by economic advantages, protective laws, and constitutional privileges. The commercial communication and information industries and the academic communication and mass media discipline profess a major, common purpose in society—to advance clear, accurate, responsible expression in the public service.
