The practitioners didn't answer in large numbers, and as for the academics, they were evidently willing to rank a nonexistent program. A rather stirring reason to doubt the entire procedure, one would think. Becker has said that he did not intend that his list be used in this fashion. Goldstein says that the list includes many schools that are more involved in teaching communications, advertising and public relations than journalism, and that their deans can't make informed assessments of journalism programs proper. Sanoff says that U. S. News revises its methods all the time, and that its door is open for constructive suggestions.
Lists are a substitute for reporting.
U. S. News is not the only misplacing concretizer in the education business, only the best-circulating one. There is also a ranking system of graduate academic departments published periodically by the National Academy of Sciences. This one is supposed to be the result of a survey of professors. Not once was I ever asked my opinion, nor were several of my colleagues whom I once asked. There, he was properly critical of reporters falling all over polls and neglecting to note that oftentimes people know next to nothing about the terms on which the citizenry are invited to express opinions.