At a mid-point in these events, the alumni group at Columbia sponsored a public forum on journalism schooling and its future. The real topic was Bollinger's actions and what they meant. A good crowd came that evening because the alumni were concerned. Almost everyone had something to say on whether Bollinger was asking the right questions, or meddling with a great program, or worse.

I had taken a position on these events in the Chronicle of Higher Education--pro-Bollinger, but also read Bollinger, please--so I was asked to join the panel that night; and I learned something there. At the close of a long evening of debate, I wanted to tell the group--the graduates--how much I admired the Columbia J-School, the history of which I had studied.

I said they had passed through not only a great professional training ground in journalism, but a "great school of theology." It's like a divinity degree, I said. Smart people entering the profession learn the religion of journalism, and acquire their faith in a free press, among many other practical lessons.

Only rarely does a public speaker know that the audience as a whole "got" something. This was one of those times. At the words "school of theology," I saw a very large number of alumni smile or nod. They could see how this fit their experience. In J-school, they learned what it means to be virtuous, even righteous, although their education no doubt stopped short of recommending any "crusade" in journalism. (Crusades are against the religion, you see.)

They also absorbed a sense of what's sacred, what's profane in journalism-- as with the wall between the news and business sides of the operation. The wall is commonly called the "separation of church and state" by newsroom pros, who speak metaphorically yet with great passion and precision about keeping this barrier intact. And who is the church in that comparison? It isn't the counting room, it's the newsroom. The church is supposed to be journalism. The money side is supposed profane.

Two: The Journalist's Creed

Listen to this language, from an ancient oath called The Journalists Creed, written by Walter Williams, Dean of the University of Missouri's Journalism School, 1908-1935. It is the statement of a secular faith: "I believe in the profession of journalism. I believe that the public journal is a public trust; that all connected with it are, to the full measure of their responsibility, trustees for the public; that acceptance of a lesser service than public service is a betrayal of that trust."

So far pretty tame-- civil religion predominates. But here is some of the rest, about the sense of calling in the believer's journalism: