Stop press.

The article discusses why top universities in Britain are getting interested in journalism. Oxford University is planning to set up a journalism institute. The scheme is not an attempt to cash in on the popularity of "media studies", but a high-minded plan to use the university's clout to improve standards in British journalism. The idea has some heavyweights behind it--Timothy Garton Ash, an Oxford professor and journalist, Tim Gardam, a former director of programmes at Channel Four and now principal of St Anne's college, the Reuters Foundation, an educational charity linked to the news agency, Alan Rusbridger, editor of the "Guardian," and John Lloyd, a senior journalist at the "Financial Times." All believe that there is a problem with the quality of British journalism. One issue is its silliness--the obsession with celebrity gossip and manufactured scandal that has spread from the popular papers to the qualities. Another issue is intrusion. Oxford is not the only institution interested in this issue. The London School of Economics is the best-known of several universities that are improving their media-studies programmes.