October 2007

Flacks and Hacks
Ken Alexander’s rant about contemporary culture in the July/August Sightings (“Generation www”) was dead-on, with one exception. Not all journalism schools teach both truth and falsity, and some understand very well that budding writers must read, travel, and spend downtime with Zarathustra. The school at the University of King’s College is one of them. We do not teach public relations in any form. Our students begin their undergraduate studies with not only Nietzsche, but also selections from Homer, Plato, Virgil, Descartes, Rousseau, Kant, Locke, Hegel, Marx, Robespierre, and Darwin. And we not only encourage our students to travel, we sometimes fund their trips, finding small stipends to help young Canadians explore the wider world. Feel better now?
Kelly Toughill
Assistant Professor,
University of King’s College
Halifax, Nova Scotia