Journalism freshman Rosalinda Albrecht looks over the news in the downtown Phoenix campus of ASU's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, which was dedicated on Thursday.

Other articles by Jacques Billeaud:

Ariz. panel OKs proposed abortion restrictions Arpaio's lawyer says US agencies not playing fair Officials: Arizona has enough antivirals for fluArizona's request for border troops deniedAriz. senators voice support for border troops Phoenix killer gets six death penalties Phoenix’s Serial Shooter gets 6 death sentencesBernanke to Phoenix bankers: Exec compensation must be monitoredGOP lawmakers criticize probe of Maricopa County sheriffGoddard: US-Mexico collaboration needed to fight cartels

Administrative & Professional
Jorgensen Brooks Group
Counselor Finance and Accounting
Charles E. Gillman Company
Accounting Specialist Health Care
CENTRAL ARIZONA COLLEGE
DIRECTOR OF HEALTH INFORMATION MANAGEMENT Sales and Marketing
Everready Glass
Sales Reps Health Care
Sierra Tucson
Eating Disorders Program Coordinator Trades/Construction
RANCHO RESORT
MAINTANANCE POSITION Administrative & Professional
Tucson Urban League
CEO/President

PHOENIX — As the newspaper business struggles to survive, journalism would seem to be a hard sell for young people trying to pick a career.

Newspaper circulation is plummeting steadily. Advertising dollars are being lost to Internet sites. And scores of veteran reporters, editors and photographers are being laid off or taking buyouts.

Despite these dire conditions, Arizona State University is investing heavily in its Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, revamping its curriculum to focus on digital reporting, beefing up its faculty with news-industry veterans and moving into a new $71 million building in downtown Phoenix, which was officially dedicated on Thursday.

Christopher Callahan, the school's dean, said graduates are landing jobs at newspapers, at television stations and in public relations because they are cheaper to employ than veterans and are prepared to do the versatile multimedia reporting now demanded by the business.

"These students are actually quite in demand," Callahan said. "It's a different world. It's a world that a lot of my (older journalist) friends don't like. That's a perfectly legitimate point of view, but the fact of the matter is that the world has changed. It's a digital world."

While some journalism schools are holding steady in their growth, Arizona State University joins the University of Missouri, Northwestern University and others in expanding their investments in journalism education, said Jennifer McGill, executive director of the Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication.

One of the most significant changes at Arizona State's school was requiring a multimedia class in which each student must write stories, shoot still photos and videos, edit footage and produce Web pages. Lessons from the class will be incorporated into other courses when logical.

Adriana DiMatteo, a freshman journalism student who wants to become a beat writer covering professional sports teams, said she and other students are comfortable with the expectation that they will have to produce news in several formats.

"We're so used to being around the Internet and used to having different sorts of multimedia things thrown at us, so it's not that big of an adjustment for us," DiMatteo said.

The school purposefully has lowered its enrollment from 2,000 in 2005 to 1,300 today so that professors can spend more time working with students. At the same time, faculty ranks have been boosted from 20 full-time professors in 2005 to 36 today, with plans to hire three more in the coming months.

The faculty is focused on giving students real-world experience that will make them more valuable in the job market.

Over the last four years, the school has gotten a total of $15 million from the university. It also has rounded up another $23 million from foundations, businesses and individual donors since mid-2005.

The most visible reminder of investment in Arizona State's journalism school sits six stories high in downtown Phoenix, where the university has opened a new campus.

While the school's former location on the university's main campus in Tempe was crowded, the new building is spacious and includes newsrooms, dozens of digital editing rooms, a 150-seat auditorium, banks of TV screens, two TV studios for the school and two more studios for the university's television station.