By Jewad Alnabi, Jason Brennan, Joseph Khalil, Noura Youk and Amanda Berry
Throughout the Nation, many graduates from prestigious schools are taking the skills they learned in school to sue…their school. They claim that the schools falsely advertised the real availability of jobs in law, and many of them are struggling to find a solid career. This story was reported by many different news outlets, and each had their own part to share. 1.Minnesota Daily and local perspective
1. Minnesota Daily
http://www.mndaily.com/2011/10/27/law-schools-brought-court-over-job-rates
The article in the Minnesota Daily, a newspaper written by students at the University of Minnesota, discusses the issue of law schools inflating their post graduation employment rates. I choose to look at the daily since I thought it would be interesting to see how students who are attending a university where this problem is occurring would view this issue. Furthermore, the article gives the perspective of a small local news organization rather than a big company. This will allow us to see the different perspectives of the two different types of reporting news agencies.
An interesting point about this article is the way it compares the University of Minnesota to other university facing the same charges. In the beginning the article discusses the problem of how a law suit has been charged against law schools for false advertising. Specifically it claims that schools inflate their numbers by omitting if students are employed as part time or full time employees. Furthermore, it states that most schools don’t tell what type of jobs their students receive. However, when this article discusses the University of Minnesota it claims that we follow the standards that are set by the American Bar Association and even go beyond it by disclosing the percentages of our graduates who work in different sectors. An interesting thing about this is that it favorers the law students’ sides when speaking about other schools but supported the University of Minnesota when this problem is accused of happening at the University of Minnesota. This is interesting to see because one can clearly see the bias the author has about other university’s compared to the University of Minnesota.
2.CNN-Money and perspective of business
CNN-MONEY
http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2011/08/31/law-grads-take-their-job-frustrations-to-court/
I wanted to find a business news outlet and how they reported the story, instead of the local news station. This would be a good way to look at it through a business standpoint and I found a few good sources.
A good source that I found reporting on the story CNN-Money, where it was clear through the story sided in favor of the students. From looking through other sources, many articles constructed the stories with just facts and without the perspective of the students. In this article, it sides with the students and critiques both the schools as well as the job field. The author in many times sides with the students by constructing the article with many quotes from graduates, he uses these quotes to help us sympathize with the student’s frustration. It starts off right away by criticizing the law job field but stating it is no longer the successful pathway it once used to be. The article also did a good job of presenting interesting figures that many other sources didn’t. It showed figures of how much tuition is, expected rate of finding employment, rates of employments from the school side as well as actual rates. The author also frames the schools as the bad guys while the students are victims, who were tricked by these schools. It also sets it up with many story accounts and quotes from students, and later in the article bring in the law schools side, which is short and brief with only comment, is schools refuse to comment on the stories.
3 Through the perspective of the schools
Are the law schools really to blame? Some recent media attention has been focused on the issue as major cases are being settled and it is quite interesting to see how the issue is framed in various media outlets.
Within the past few issues of Bench and Bar of Minnesota magazine, there were no articles regarding recently unemployed law school grads and the controversy around the issue. It is a local magazine run by the Minnesota State Bar Association whose main focus in not publishing news. It was still useful to note that some of the advertisements within were for courses offered by local law schools like William Mitchell College of Law or the University of Saint Thomas’ law school. Also, the MSBA makes a significant amount of money annually from dues from their attorney members. With that in mind it is not entirely surprising that they would not publish an article that would potentially alienate their members (those who pay their dues and subscribe to the magazine) or the law schools in the area (those who purchase advertising within the magazine) as it may harm their profit margin.
In addition to the Bench and Bar of Minnesota, there is the Minnesota Lawyer owned by the Dolan Company. They have several online bloggers who has some interesting remarks about the issue. The blogger’s post states how she feels about the job market and her belief that there is a great deal of over exaggeration about how awful career outlook is for lawyers. When looking into her biography you see that she is a recent graduate of the William Mitchell College of Law and is employed in a moderately sized local law firm that deals with mortgage law. This is significant because it is obvious that her feelings on the job market would be skewed. She is employed full time in the field, locally, and in an area of law that no doubt has an intense amount of work at the moment. The comments on the blog attack her position and indirectly the author, which ruins the potential debate that could be had over the issue. In another post by the author on the issue of “false advertising” of graduation employment rates, she congratulates William Mitchell College of Law for being honest in their advertising of such employment rates. After reading this second blog post it even further weakens the credibility of her first post as a form of alternative media. This illustrates how important it is to know what forces are polarizing a particular news source.
4 . Washington Post and the middle class
This particular media outlet presents their information on this matter in a way that is comparable to the situation of the working class putting in hard work and seeing very little return from the ones that they have been working for. In the matter of these law students, they have worked hard to graduate from law school while ensured that their profession will cover the costs of their education and yet they cannot find work to these amounts all back. So the law schools have failed and giving these young law school graduates a secure future.
Annie Lowrey, who reports on the economy and business for Slate, poses this stance from the Washington Post. The data provided seems to be the truth or at least from its agency, is provided from the more right side or at least, the side that we should take, which is the working class side, i.e. the law school graduates. It is presented partially on the position of the law school students but at the same time discusses some of the reasoning and awareness of the situation from the law school’s standpoint. The article states that the job market for lawyers is terrible. This is especially true for the younger lawyers and to an even greater extent for graduates. So these young graduates are complaining that they were enticed into this occupation field and assured that once they graduate, they will be able to pay the costs back, i.e. loans. But they also report from the law schools stance. Richard Matasar tells that “students cannot earn enough income after graduation to support the debt they incur” and “Even those making the highest salaries find that the debt that they have accumulated while in school may tax them for years.” So while the graduates that can’t find work complain about their unemployment, the opposite side seems to tell that situations like these are not uncommon. But the particular point of view that is stressed here is on the side of law school graduates. The big law schools attempt to cover up their shortcomings with excuses but the fact of the matter is that the graduates have spent time and loan money at these institutions so that they may have a secured job.
Comparison of the outlets:
MNDaily:
Another interesting thing about this article is that it takes a local view point rather than a much more big national view. This causes the article to be more about the local University, which is the University of Minnesota, than universities as a sum. This is interesting because it sets a more personal view on the issue, which causes one to care more. Overall, it is clear that because this newspaper is a local university supported newspaper, that it takes a different side to reporting the problem with law schools inflating their graduate employment rates.
CNN-MONEY:
It’s an interesting way for the author to construct this article; it isn’t favoring the leading class and is on the side of the underdog. It states multiple times of how the leading class, the schools, lie and deceive the lower class, in the process making themselves richer. It’s a good criticism of schools and how the system is run. Instead of it being about education, it is more about trying to gain money, and it reminds us that colleges are still a business.
WashingtonPost:
So in the article, what is represented and what is said is rhetorical being in particular favor of the position of the unemployed law school graduates. We are motioned in this direction because there is a greater number of students compared to law schools and it would obviously appeal more to the masses on the side of the students who have appeared to have been wronged.
No comments:
Post a Comment