J-skool play skool.

Journalism itself has been in the news of late, partly because there have been more layoffs of journalists at places like Vice Media. And if you find it hard to believe that a place like Vice Media actually employs journalists, you're not alone. Poor, poor Disney.

This kind of news story sparks some hilarity from some of the older guys in the game, like P.J. O'Rourke and Andy Ferguson, and (a bit younger) Kyle Smith. They have reminded me of a few points of importance:

1) Journalists have gone from being tough, man-of-the-people guys to pesky do-gooders who might have joined the Peace Corps in other times.

2) The movie version of All the President's Men is the main reason why. No modern journalist thinks he or she is doing his job unless he gets a Republican to leave office in shame. Every intern covering the town council tax revision meeting dreams of it.

3) In the olden days, reporters all learned the craft by covering boring meetings and writing obits, but now they arrive with master's degrees! and expect to start closer to the top. Even if they write like drunken buffalo. And because they have not learned the basics of the job, most of them have wasted untold thousands on that degree in journalism (at "J-school") and, with the shrinking market for journalists, can never earn enough to justify spending the money.

And in my experience in the field, I would add:

4) Many of these kids came from rich or at least way-upper-middle-class families, because no family like mine would have put up with footing the bills while the kid took an unpaid internship at some media outlet that pays more to blow-dry an anchor's hair in a week than to develop young talent, if it said talent even exists. This puts the young journalist in the awkward position of having been spoiled rotten and yet still exploited.

5) Also, one must add a note from President Obama's own Deputy National Security Administrator, Ben Rhodes: "The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing."

They literally know nothing, but think they know everything, so much of it that they are too full to add any more. Liberal Arts programs are in the business of filling up heads with intellectual Twinkies so there's no room for a porterhouse. In fact, journalists think they can tell us how awesome Communism is and rewrite history, which leads me to think it's not just the under-30s who literally know nothing.

Therefore, I offer the free course below for all journalists of every age, because I think most of them have demonstrated the need for it.

Of course, the main bit of wisdom I would offer the youth of America is: Don't plan to be a reporter; find something to do that you like better and that pays more. Whatever you do, don't pay a place like Columbia a small fortune for a useless credential. Or let your parents do it.